Posted on 10/15/2004 8:28:56 PM PDT by ijcr
Tinned tomatoes will be the first to go, as Sainsbury's switches its premium plum tomatoes from cans to cartons this week and declares the Tetra Pak the shape of the future. But other goods that are traditionally tinned are expected to follow.
A great leap forward in technology means lumpy foods can now go the way of most liquids and be sold in paperboard packs.
The industry believes the new Tetra Paks will be popular because they are lighter than cans and easily recycled. They are also easier for industry to distribute - for every 16 lorries(trucks) needed for cylindrical tin cans, just one lorry is needed to truck the equivalent in rectangular cartons.
But will we be able to break into them? The instructions on the packs look simple enough, "lift, squeeze, tear, open", but may fill anyone familiar with the rip, snarl, tear and spill of the milk carton flap with dread.
"I've opened hundreds of them and never done the milk trick of getting it all over me," Sainsbury's canned buying manager, Les Rowse, swears.
Two thousand fingers may also be spared from injury each year - since that is the number of people who cut themselves opening tin cans in an average 12 months.
Exactly how the new packs are made is a well-patented secret, but intelligence suggests they are made up of layers of moisture-resistant paper board (made from trees), heat resistant polymers (made from polypropylene) and aluminium foil.
What makes them different from other paperboard packaging is that they can withstand enough heat to sterilise the contents once they have been filled. They are boiled in a chamber for two hours at 130C - a technique invented for tin cans.
So it looks as though the days of tinned food are numbered. First conceived in 1810 by British merchant Peter Durand and originally opened with a hammer, they may soon be consigned to a museum of curiosities.
Unless of course they survive in nuclear bunkers, where paperboard doesn't seem quite adequate to the task.
How long are they good for though? Cans have a good shelf life.
Good, China needs the steel to make crappy trinkets to sell back to us.
> for every 16 lorries(trucks) needed for cylindrical tin cans, just one lorry is needed to truck the equivalent in rectangular cartons.
Can't possibly be true.
Imagine that as three-dimensional volume, and, yeah, it's possible that packing in cubes instead of cylinders could save a gigantic amount of shipping space.
Who are these idiots?
Exactly how the new packs are made is a well-patented secret
If it's "well-patented", it's not a secret. It's just legally defensible.
Folger's decaf is now uncanned. Still round, tho.
I'm hangin' on to my P-38 just in case.
Great storage containers, too.
. . . and easily recycled.
Paper, plastic and aluminium recycled into what?
A great leap forward in technology means lumpy foods can now go the way of most liquids and be sold in paperboard packs.
they can withstand enough heat to sterilise the contents once they have been filled. They are boiled in a chamber for two hours at 130C - a technique invented for tin cans.
Chili is starting to come in boxes and tuna is in foil pouches.
I take it that all foods now available canned will soon be available as retort-pouch packaged, just like MREs.
Heard that!
> Experiment: Draw a grid of four squares. Now inscribe a circle inside each square. See how much space is wasted?
> Imagine that as three-dimensional volume, and, yeah, it's possible that packing in cubes instead of cylinders could save a gigantic amount of shipping space.
A 1x1 square has an area of 1. A circle circumscribed within it has a diameter of 1 and an area of pr^2, or .79. The other area comprises a waste factor of .21.
The third dimension has nothing to do with it, since cylinders are also flat on their tops and bottoms. So if they had said that 4 trucks could now do the work of 5 - a significant benefit indeed - that would have been believable. But to say one truck now can do the work of 16 is absurd. Sounds like one out of touch reporter.
> lumpy foods can now go the way of most liquids
Those same lumpy foods will have to deal with the straight walls of thier new square containers. If anything I would guess a curved wall would be slightly more efficient.
Square also gives you storage/stacking efficiency.
Not vertically. See my post #16.
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