Soup in the air

Category: Food Applications
Material: CPET

Hot food for Intercontinental flight is often served in aluminum trays.

The process of developing the new packaging solution in plastic took our development and technician department to a new level. Physical laws for air pressures, the consistency of the soup, the filling process, the heating and steam aspect, the cabin crews handling and the passengers use of the packaging was considered to create the optimal solution for soup in the air.

Still today our solution is the only usable for serving soup in the air. The scientific challenge was to create a packaging that could keep the soup in the tray which at the same time could equalize the air pressure in the airplane. It should also be able to let the steam out when heated in 20 minutes at 185°C in the air and it should be easy to handle for the cabin crew when serving.

A team of specialists within technique, development and sales from Faerch Plast and DeSter had several trials and after test flights to e.g. Johannesburg and San Francisco they invented a solution with grooves around the top edge. The grooves are designed to let the pressure or steam out and keep the soup in. When serving the soup for the passengers the lid prevented the soup from slopping over when the cabin crew transported it in the aisles.
The soup was manually filled on ground with fresh soup. To ensure that the tray could comply with the demand for 180 ml soup in the tray, a measuring line got marked on the side of the tray showing just how much soup the tray can contain without having the soup boil over when heated.

Company:

Faerch Plast