Chunky soup in carton packs

SETTING a new trend in the area of ready-to-eat soups, Unilever has launched a range of its ‘Unox’ soups – available in tomato, chicken, pea, cream of tomato, Chinese tomato, vegetable and pumpkin varieties – in aseptic carton packs. In the Dutch soup market where the 1,000-ml carton packs were introduced, they represent a true innovation – most ready-toeat soups in the Netherlands have previously been available only in food metal cans and pouches.

Dani?lle de Jager, brand manager Unox, and Helger Reitsma, trade category manager for Unilever Benelux, are convinced that the new soup specialities in carton packs will not only reach those who are already keen consumers of ready-to-eat soups but will attract new consumers as well. “Soups are on the rise, as a meal in themselves and as an entree or easily digestible snack,” they say.“By providing quality soups in handy family packs, we are setting a new trend in the area of ready-to-eat soups.”

“The soups are of excellent quality. The gentle aseptic process ensures unique product quality that you can taste,” they add. “The process involves heating the soups only very briefly, which enhances the consistency and the colour of the soups.”

Rich chunks keep their shape
To fill its products, Unilever invested in a food filling machine from SIG Combibloc that makes it possible to pack food containing extra-large pieces into 1-litre carton packs. The key to filling these products is the sleeve system of SIG Combibloc. In a sleeve system, manufacturers receive the packaging materials to be used for their products as prefabricated blanks, printed with the required design, precisely marked with fold lines and pre-sealed as sleeves.

These sleeves are opened into shape on SIG Combibloc’s filling machines and sealed at the base. The soups, sterilised using the UHT process, are filled into carton packs that are open at the top. Only when the filling process is completed is the packaging sealed above the filling level – not through the product. This prevents parts of the product from being caught in the sealed seam.

SIG Combibloc’s state-of-the-art filling machines for food products enable products containing solid chunks up to 25 millimetres in size to be processed into aseptic carton packs. In fact, individual fibres can be up to 40 millimetres long, and the proportion of particulates can be as high as 50 per cent. For Unox soups, in particular, this means extra-large pieces of vegetable, sausage and meat can be filled into the carton packs gentle and safely.