Cafe Spice Changes Retail Tray Packaging to More Eco-Friendly Alternative

July 10, 2024

Indian meals processor will use a more sustainable option for its plastic trays in retail products, plans to embark upon similar initiative with foodservice products.

Andy Hanacek

Cafe Spice, a New Windsor, N.Y.-based manufacturer of ready-to-eat Indian meals for foodservice and branded retail channels, announced it is transitioning its retail packaging to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly option, in a release shared by the company.

The packaging for the company’s retail product will switch to a translucent #5 polypropylene plastic tray — a change that has already begun to roll out to the market and will continue over the next few weeks, the company said.

Cafe Spice said that the tray that the company is transitioning away from is a recyclable product, but it had heard arguments that recycling plants’ sorting machines were not able to easily pick up the black pigment in the trays, meaning some of the trays would be incorrectly sorted into the waste stream that headed toward the landfills rather than recycled.

The new trays are produced with less plastic, which the company says reduces scrap and lowers its carbon footprint. Cafe Spice adds that the new packaging will not change the preparation steps nor the quality of the microwaveable products.

Building upon this successful transformation, Cafe Spice added that it plans to roll out similar sustainability-minded modifications to its foodservice bundling in the not-too-distant future.

About the Author

Andy Hanacek | Senior Editor

Andy Hanacek has covered meat, poultry, bakery and snack foods as a B2B editor for nearly 20 years, and has toured hundreds of processing plants and food companies, sharing stories of innovation and technological advancement throughout the food supply chain. In 2018, he won a Folio:Eddie Award for his unique "From the Editor's Desk" video blogs, and he has brought home additional awards from Folio and ASBPE over the years. In addition, Hanacek led the Meat Industry Hall of Fame for several years and was vice president of communications for We R Food Safety, a food safety software and consulting company.