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Designing for Recovery: Bonson’s Move from Black to Clear PP Ready Meal Packaging

Helping customers consider end-of-life from the beginning

Sometimes improving packaging circularity does not require changing to an entirely different material. It can come from understanding how existing recycling and recovery systems work – and making better choices at the design and specification stage.

That thinking has helped drive the evolution of Bonson Packaging’s Homeal™ range, with the introduction of clear/natural polypropylene (PP) and freezer-grade PP trays alongside traditional black PP packaging.

The approach also extends to Bonson’s Ready Meal tray range, sold under the Homeal™ banner, providing food manufacturers and retailers with packaging options that balance product performance with greater consideration of what happens to the pack at the end of its useful life.

Starting the end-of-life conversation

When Bonson works with customers to select packaging, the conversation is not only about what the packaging needs to do during its life. We also encourage customers to consider what is likely to happen to that packaging after use.

That means looking at the complete packaging journey: the product it needs to protect, manufacturing and filling processes, transport, chilled or frozen storage, retail presentation and consumer use – as well as the available end-of-life pathways.

Material type, colour, labels, food contamination and the recycling infrastructure available in the market can all influence whether packaging that is technically recyclable has a realistic opportunity to be recovered.

For polypropylene trays, one of those considerations is colour.

The challenge with black plastic

Polypropylene is widely used for prepared and ready meal packaging because of its combination of strength, food safety and temperature performance. However, conventional black plastic can present challenges for some automated sorting and recovery facilities.

Many Material Recovery Facilities use optical sorting technologies, including near-infrared (NIR) systems, to identify different polymer types and separate them for recovery.

Traditional carbon-black pigments can absorb the near-infrared light used by some of these sorting systems, making black packaging more difficult for the equipment to identify correctly.

This is an important consideration Bonson raises with customers when discussing packaging options.

A pack may be made from a recyclable polymer such as PP, but the choices made when specifying that pack can influence its prospects for identification, sorting and recovery at end of life.

A clearer alternative

To provide customers with another option, Bonson has expanded the Homeal™ range to include clear/natural PP trays, removing the reliance on conventional black pigmentation while retaining the functional benefits that make polypropylene suitable for ready meals.

Clear or natural PP is more readily detectable by optical sorting technology than conventional carbon-black PP, improving the opportunity for the material to be correctly identified and directed into an appropriate plastics recovery stream where suitable infrastructure and end markets are available.

For customers reviewing their packaging, this provides an opportunity to consider whether black is necessary for their product or whether clear/natural PP can deliver the required performance while being better aligned with their end-of-life objectives.

It is a relatively straightforward design decision, but it demonstrates an important principle: Think about end of life when you choose the packaging – not when it becomes waste.

Extending the approach across ready meal packaging

This thinking is not limited to a single Homeal™ product.

Bonson has extended clear/natural PP options across its Homeal™ and Ready Meal tray ranges, giving food manufacturers, meal producers and retailers more choice when considering the environmental implications of their packaging.

The range also includes freezer-grade polypropylene trays, helping customers select packaging suited to their specific temperature, production and distribution requirements while maintaining a focus on recyclability.

This is particularly important in the prepared and ready meal category, where packaging can be expected to withstand manufacturing, filling, sealing, transportation, chilled or frozen storage, retail display and reheating.

End-of-life considerations therefore need to be balanced against the fundamental purpose of the packaging: protecting the food and maintaining its quality and safety throughout the supply chain.

Making informed packaging choices

There is rarely one packaging solution that is right for every food product, production process or supply chain.

For Bonson, the objective is therefore not simply to tell customers to move from one material or colour to another. It is to help them make informed packaging choices based on the complete lifecycle of the pack.

That includes asking practical questions:

• What does the packaging need to do to protect the product?

• Will it be used for chilled, frozen or hot-fill applications?

• Does it need to withstand microwave reheating?

• What is the likely end-of-life pathway?

• How easily can the polymer be identified and sorted?

• Is black packaging necessary, or could clear/natural PP provide the same functional performance with improved sort-ability?

By including these questions early in packaging discussions, end-of-life becomes part of the specification process rather than an afterthought.

Designing with New Zealand's recovery infrastructure in mind

Improving plastics circularity means looking beyond whether a polymer is theoretically recyclable. Packaging design also needs to take into account how materials are collected, identified and sorted in practice.

Moving from conventional black PP towards clear/natural PP can help address one of the barriers that can prevent otherwise recyclable plastic from being successfully identified during sorting.

It also demonstrates the role packaging manufacturers, and their customers can play together. Decisions made well before a product reaches supermarket shelves can ultimately influence the options available for that packaging once its job is done.

Better choices at the beginning can improve outcomes at the end

The evolution of the Homeal™ range forms part of Bonson's broader approach to plastics circularity.

Successful plastics recovery depends on an interconnected system – including packaging design, consumer behaviour, collection, sorting infrastructure, contamination management and viable markets for recovered polymers.

Bonson cannot control every part of that system.

What we can do is design with end of life in mind, provide customers with appropriate packaging choices and encourage them to consider the implications of those choices.

For the Homeal™ and Ready Meal ranges, providing clear/natural PP alongside traditional black formats is one practical example of that approach.

It means starting the conversation earlier and asking a simple question before the packaging is specified: What happens to this pack when its job is done?

By considering that question at the beginning, we can make packaging choices that give valuable plastic materials a better opportunity to be identified, recovered and kept in circulation.