Picture this: a perfectly cooked meal, ready to be enjoyed — and instead, it ends up in the trash. Not because it wasn’t delicious, but because it didn’t make it to the consumer in time or wasn’t stored properly along the way. This is the reality behind global food waste, and it’s a growing concern.
Each year, around 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted globally — roughly one-third of all food produced for human consumption. The economic loss is staggering, but the environmental and humanitarian costs are even greater. In the world of ready meals, food waste is often the result of short shelf life, poor packaging, or temperature fluctuations — all of which are preventable.
Food Waste vs. Food Security
Though often mentioned together, food waste and food security are different challenges. Food waste refers to edible food that is discarded throughout the supply chain — during production, processing, distribution, or after purchase. In contrast, food security is about ensuring that all people, always, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food.
Reducing food waste helps improve food security by making more food available and reducing pressure on resources like water, land, and energy. But availability alone isn't enough — safety plays an equally crucial role.
Food Safety: A Foundation for Trust
Food safety is about protecting consumers from foodborne illnesses, contamination, and spoilage. Even a perfectly distributed meal is of no value if it is unsafe to eat. In the context of ready meals, this means ensuring proper hygiene, airtight sealing, controlled temperatures, and materials that prevent chemical leaching or microbial growth.
For us, food safety is non-negotiable. Our trays are engineered to preserve product integrity throughout the supply chain — from factory to fork — using advanced materials and designs that meet the highest hygiene and performance standards, providing extended shelf life of the packed food.
MCP’s Commitment: Smart Packaging, Safer Food
We believe packaging is a critical factor in the mission to reduce food waste and uphold food safety. That’s why we offer innovative tray solutions designed for the most demanding ready meal applications:
- CPET trays, known for their strength and durability, offer excellent temperature resistance and structural reliability. Among them, the On Tray Superb stands out — specially designed to support airtight sealing even when food residues are present, helping maintain freshness and reduce spoilage.
- Our MLPP (Multi-Layer Polypropylene) trays provide advanced barrier protection against oxygen, moisture, and odors, helping extend shelf life significantly. The barrier layer can be customized to meet the specific needs of the application, offering solutions for products with shelf lives ranging from a few weeks up to a full year.
- For deep-freeze distribution, the On Tray DM, an impact-modified CPET tray, ensures outstanding performance. It’s engineered to withstand transportation and mechanical stress without deformation or breakage, even at sub-zero temperatures.
With each solution, MCP helps manufacturers, retailers, and consumers waste less — and enjoy more. Because when it comes to food, every tray matters.