Licence to Chill
Lynne McIntyre, ESR Senior Scientist, tries out Crushpak® at a New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology meeting.
Solving the design challenge
Inveratek partner Michael Kessell, a former mechanic, came up with the initial idea for CrushPak® after watching a small child trying to eat yoghurt without using a spoon. He recognised the design challenge in solving the child's problem.
Inveratek's VP of Engineering, Edward Scott, a mechanical engineer with 17 years' experience in industrial design and manufacture, had the job of designing and producing the new packaging idea.
Mr Scott was involved in extensive work on tooling and other processes needed to ensure CrushPak® would work. During the product development and prototyping phase, Inveratek worked with an external company on a small-scale vacuum-forming machine, producing literally dozens of iterations and ensuring a relatively quick turnaround. Later the company purchased and built most of the equipment needed to do the feasibility tests. The new design's main requirement was the material had to be strong enough to withstand the filling and shipping processes but flexible enough that a child or an elderly person with limited dexterity would be able to squeeze out the contents.
"To achieve this we looked at a host of different designs and forming processes to see which one would give us the best results," says Mr Scott. "The processes also needed to be as close to the existing industry standards as possible so that our potential customers would be able to take the pack and adapt their manufacturing lines or processes with very few changes. This would make switching to CrushPak® a quick and cost-effective process, which was vital if the product was to be fast-tracked to market."
The design team tested many different materials in their quest to produce the distinctive packaging. They found that all the current materials used for vacuum forming yoghurt pots worked very well, including high-impact polystyrene and polypropylene.
The CrushPak® yoghurt and dairy food products on sale in New Zealand are made of polystyrene, which is not yet accepted for recycling here. But Mr Scott sees no reason why they cannot be made of a recyclable plastic. "If 'ordinary' yoghurt pots can be made with recyclable material there is no reason why the same construction would not work for CrushPak®." In their favour, however, CrushPak® pots actually contain 35 per cent less material than other similar containers which means less material enters the waste stream. And because the packaging is crushed by the consumer it takes up less room in the bin.
The pots are strong and able to withstand double the top load of conventional yoghurt pots. The pack's vertical bellows help it withstand top-load forces exerted during the filling process, transportation and storage. This allows the packaging to be thinner than traditional packs. The triangular shape of the bellows also increases the integrity of the pack. Other similar packs with the same thickness as CrushPak® need to have sleeve labels to help add additional strength. This increases not only material costs but also handling and shipping costs.
