The recipe for a fibre-based cookie tray

You cannot really make a delicious cookie without butter or some other form of grease. This makes cookies a particularly demanding food stuff when it comes to the design of the packaging.

As brand owners and retailers are increasingly turning to fibre-based packaging material to avoid plastic packaging, the need for a new solution for cookies arose. Walki answered to this demand by launching a fibre-based cookie tray.

Preventing staining places specific demands on the barrier lining of the packaging. To tackle this challenge, Walki cooperated with two partners: Syntegon, one of the leading companies producing packaging machinery, and Swedish board producer Billerud.

“The joint objective was to develop a fibre-based material that would be more sustainable and renewable than the pure plastic trays that are mostly used in this segment today. The idea was to develop a rigid tray concept that would offer a variety of packaging design options to differentiate it at the point of sale, along with a board-based structure to give mechanical protection to the cookies,” says Stefan Erdmann, Technical Service and Development Manager for Barrier Board at Walki, based in Steinfurt, Germany.

Syntegon developed both the concept and the machines to erect fibre-trays right before packing the cookies while Billerud contributed to the project with its fully recyclable CrownBoard Craft, which is a kraft board that is best known for delivering high quality and strength while maintaining a low weight.

As for Walki, it brought its expertise in barrier performance with two different material combinations based on kraft board. Finally, German Spiegel Verpackungen supported the team with printing and die-cutting.

Recyclable tray classified as a mono-material

The result, which was unveiled at Interpack 2023, is known as the Folded Fibre Tray: a recyclable, fibre-based packaging material with a natural brown colour. Classified as a mono-material, it provides a good grease barrier without compromising recyclability in the fibre stream.

The board-based structure offers the necessary mechanical protection to minimise cracking and breakage during transportation while the optional white exterior surface of the tray provides an excellent print surface to make the package appealing.