Tetra Recart targets home-cooking trend with F&B carton innovation

Carton-based F&B packaging can be crucial for prolonging shelf life, maintaining nutritional value, and preventing food waste. We examine the latest F&B carton solutions from Tetra Recart, the food carton segment of Tetra Pak.

Laura Latisonoka, product management and market support director at Tetra Recart, speaks to Packaging Insights about how the increasing popularity of home cooking is driving consumer interest and how smart packaging design can preserve the nutritional qualities of F&B products.

What makes Tetra Recart’s packaging for soups and sauces stand out?  

Latisonoka: At Tetra Pak, our priority is to make food safe and available everywhere. That’s also the goal for Tetra Recart, our package format solution for prepared food, including ready-to-eat soups and sauces.

Unlike traditional F&B cartons, in Tetra Recart food is heat-treated directly inside the carton, ensuring a safe, nutritious product while delivering a modern, sustainable packaging solution. For consumers, the benefits are clear: convenience, ease of use, and a lower environmental footprint.

The carton’s shape and design make it light, easy to store, open, and reopen, while its sustainability credentials resonate with today’s eco-oriented shoppers.

For food producers, Tetra Recart offers the same technological performance as cans or glass, but with a competitive edge. This solution not only attracts consumers with its fresh appeal but also delivers significant cost savings for producers compared to traditional alternatives.

Globally proven, Tetra Recart helps manufacturers achieve logistical efficiencies, reducing distribution costs with its compact shape. It has optimized palletization, fitting up to 20% more units per pallet compared to round cans, and even more versus jars. With Tetra Recart, producers gain a strategic advantage in a market that demands innovation, sustainability, and efficiency.

What trends do you spot in the soup and sauce packaging space? 

Tetra Recart supports manufacturers to achieve logistical efficiencies by reducing distribution costs.Latisonoka: Many of our customers are responding to the growing trend toward health-conscious consumption. At Tetra Pak, we support this shift with packaging that protects and preserves the nutritional value of soups and sauces throughout their shelf life. 

We support producers by sharing decades of food industry expertise to help them meet their unique production specifications and develop recipes and formulations that are healthy, protein-rich meals of the best quality.

The burgeoning trend for eating at home is driving a boom in ready meals and sauces. We have noticed an uptick in this trend since the COVID-19 pandemic, as consumers have grown more adventurous with their palates at home. Packaging solutions for soups and sauces mean that consumers can explore cuisines from all over the world in a way that is convenient and safe, and Tetra Recart in particular allows F&B producers to innovate with new products meeting this demand. 

Sustainability is another growth driver. Increasingly, consumers are mindful of the environmental impact of the products they use. Tetra Recart packages are made of over 71% paperboard, responsibly sourced material, and are recyclable and recycled where collection and recycling infrastructure exist.

Tetra Recart cartons are the ideal format to communicate health benefits, such as through a list of natural ingredients, and sustainability credentials. These include a certification that the paperboard is sourced from forests managed by the Forest Stewardship Council.

The square shape and printable surfaces are ideal for eye-catching design and clearly communicated benefits. 

What opportunities and challenges do you see in soup and sauce packaging?

Latisonoka: One of the greatest opportunities lies in enhancing consumer convenience. As urban lifestyles become more fast-paced, consumers are seeking more practical and flexible food solutions that fit into their lifestyles. 

Ready-made products are increasingly more important in contemporary diets. They’re seen as time-saving and versatile products to simplify home cooking. Over two-fifths (41%) of UK consumers use ready-made soups at least once a month, according to the Tetra Pak The Future of Home-Cooking Trend Report.

Packaged soups and sauces cater well to smaller households by allowing individuals to purchase single portions rather than bulk ingredients, helping to reduce food waste and preparation time. 

Tetra Retract’s soup and sauce packaging allows consumers to explore cuisines from all over the world.The fridge-friendly square shape, laser-perforated tear opening, and simple re-closure make Tetra Recart packages easy for consumers to handle, and they’re easy to flatten when disposing of the carton. It’s about meeting the needs of modern shoppers, who are looking for quality, efficiency, and solutions with minimal waste.

What role does technology play in developing your portfolio?

Latisonoka: We are constantly developing our F&B packages portfolio. Packaging is moving away from fossil-based materials and embracing renewable solutions that offer convenience with a lower carbon footprint. 

Tetra Recart is a great example of how technology can address these trends: paper-based packaging offers convenience for consumers, and cost efficiency for producers and retailers. 

Technological advancement aimed at lowering environmental footprint helps meet consumer demand for sustainable choices. Sixty-five percent of businesses see new product development as critical to overcoming sustainability challenges, according to Tetra Pak’s research.

We work closely with producers to develop tailored processing and packaging solutions, so they can concentrate on producing food that meets the needs of consumers and achieves their commercial goals. We make line installations as smooth and straightforward as possible for producers and provide training and technical service to help ensure the line consistently operates at peak performance. 

One of the advantages of Tetra Recart production lines is that different-sized cartons, and even different food categories can be processed and filled on the same line. Meanwhile, increasingly sophisticated automation and digitalisation solutions help optimize production lines to maximise productivity, slash product loss, and reduce the workload required.

To what extent are Tetra Recart’s solutions responding to global needs?

Latisonoka: Food producers face mounting pressures. This includes global supply chain disruptions and rising costs, as well as shifting consumer expectations around food quality, sustainability, and affordability. Tetra Recart is uniquely positioned to meet these challenges. 

The burgeoning trend for eating at home is driving demand for  ready meals and sauces, shares Latisonoka.From a consumer perspective, Tetra Recart excels in convenience and durability. Its easy-opening design and robust structure reduce product waste by up to 80% in retail environments.

Cartons are preferred by over 70% of consumers, due to ease of use and modern design.  As online grocery continues to expand, packaging can do so much more than protect the food inside.

Tetra Recart’s robust structure is designed to handle the demands of e-commerce logistics while offering brands a versatile canvas for communication. This is particularly valuable in the ready-to-consume soups and sauces category, where visual appeal can play a decisive role in attracting consumer attention. Whether on a digital shelf or a physical one, the format supports impactful design and clear messaging, helping brands highlight the product’s key differentiators.

Demand for Tetra Recart is growing rapidly across multiple categories, including soups, ready meals, vegetables, and fruits. This is because it meets today’s challenging market demands. More producers worldwide are choosing Tetra Recart as their preferred solution, from Thailand and Vietnam to India, Europe, and the US.