Mondi Consumer Bags & Films has been nominated for ‘Deutscher Verpackungspreis 2010’ (German packaging contest) in the category ‘prototypes’ with its Zip&Valve Pouch. Deutscher Verpackungspreis is one of Europe’s major packaging awards and is issued annually. Out of 276 entries the jury has chosen 48 nominations. The final winners will be announced during the award ceremony on 27 September 2010 at this year’s Fachpack exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany.

“Convenience is one of the major innovation drivers in food packaging and the origin for the development of the Zip&Valve Pouch in our R&D centre in Austria,” states Christian Kolarik, managing director, Consumer Bags & Films. The Zip&Valve Pouch is a retortable stand-up pouch for cooking food in the microwave. It offers an attractive combination of properties: a long shelf life and reclosability, without loss of vitamins and flavour. Thanks to the reduced retort time for a slim pouch, in which the necessary temperature is reached gently and fast, vitamins and minerals are retained.

The concept

The Zip&Valve Pouch enables end-consumers to prepare their meals easily in the microwave but still season them to their individual taste – just as in traditional cooking. The principle is astonishingly easy: simply add fluid (e.g. water or milk) to the food product packed in the Zip&Valve stand-up pouch, flavour as desired and close the zipper of the pouch. Then place the pouch in the microwave and, depending on the product inside, a fresh-made nutritious meal is ready in only a few minutes’ time.

In the same way as flavour can be added, content can also be taken out of the pouch to be divided into individual portions for later consumption. In this way, the advantages of traditional cooking are brought to the faster and more convenient way of microwave cooking.

Popcorn revolution

The Zip&Valve Pouch not only allows for creative cooking but also for refining snacks such as popcorn. With the innovative pouch concept the popcorn can now easily be made sweet, salty or even spicy – just to the end-consumer’s liking. Moreover, thanks to the valves and the zipper, the opening of the fresh-made popcorn pouch is far easier and safer due to the fact that the steam has already evaporated through the valves.

Optimal protection and environmentally friendly

The laminates used for Mondi Consumer Bags & Films’ pouches have excellent barrier properties and ensure delicate food is kept safe from oxygen, moisture and light. The Zip&Valve Pouch is made of a PET/CPP construction with a PP zipper, enabling retort applications with longer shelf-life. Thanks to the lightweight packaging, less energy and raw materials are used in production and transportation, resulting in reduced emissions and waste.

The new Zip&Valve stand-up pouch is used for a wide range of food types, including dry products such as rice, soups, popcorn, cereals and sauces, and fresh food like vegetables.