Adapt or improve the thermal resistance
Check, adjust, improve packaging functionnality
Stabilization of food products can be achieved by heat treatment. The "sterilization" carried out around 120 °C stabilizes the products of any microbial activity and makes it possible to keep the products at room temperature for long periods. The "pasteurization" 'stabilizes the products for storage at 4 °C for a limited time, but longer than the shelf life of the untreated product. Moreover, brand owners are developing more technical solutions that allow reheating in the microwave or a traditional oven.
All of these operations require packaging with suitable thermal resistance.
Check ALL the steps of the technological route of the product to inventory all successive time/temperature conditions applied to the packaging.
Check the material compatibility
For a temperature around 150°C; use metal, glass, or crystalline PET
For temperature higher around 115°C, use metal, glass, crystalline PET, polypropylene.
For a temperature around 100°C, use metal, glass, crystalline PET, polypropylene, HDPE.
For a temperature around 70°C, use metal, glass, crystalline PET, polypropylene, HDPE, PS, amorphous PET.
For other materials, check their temperature range of use, but also negative effect brought by food contact interaction (penetration of food in packaging material reduces its stability range).
Check alternative options to reduce the severity of material thermal specification, such as removing the reheating functionality
A drastic decrease of the thermal specifications' severity for sterilised food consists of shifting from sterilization to aseptic filling. Aseptic filling allows sterilizing the product BEFORE the conditioning.