Inverbag Details

The future for packaged food - a revolutionary new tray system

Airline Systems   Environment   Advertising Opportunity   Home Use   Fast Food Outlets.

Airline Systems.

The Disposal Cover was developed primarily as a response to years of aggravation caused by the lack of any waste control system in airline food provisioning, certainly from the aspect of the passenger. With a small change to the way a plastic bag is used, a huge change in the passenger environment can be made.

As a result of questionaires, airlines have been led to try and provide a 'raid the larder' system. This is clearly impossible for the vast majority of the flying public and although successful in the top end of the paying spectrum there is still dissatisfaction with the lack of space to put waste.

Airline food is frequently criticised for its 'plasticky' flavour and there has been a drive try to reduce the plastic after-taste in the food. This is at odds with the current systems of individually wrapping foods in the small packages in which they are delivered to the provisioning agent, who in turn puts the meal together on the tray and loads it to the aisle trolley. The hidden problem is the length of time that the food is sitting in its plastic wrapping . With the Disposal Cover, the food would be wrapped at the point it was loaded onto the tray, reducing the time it is in contact with its plastic cover by half. However, with the advent of new plastics, much of this aftertaste can be removed and with this form of food cover, the amount of individual wrapping, and therefore cost and labour, is reduced considerably.

We are planning a series of provisioning centres which will pack a meal to your specification in a tray moulded to your design. If we can get enough of these centres together we will set up a computerised link-up to the check-in desk, so that as the passengers arrive, the meal tray is put together and loaded onto the food trolleys, so that the exact meal profile of your passenger list is put in place allowing also or passengers with specific dietary needs.

There is a requirement from Health and Safety to separate cooked and uncooked foods, which is why companies have opted to pre-pack the food elements before the tray is assembled. However, with the sealing design of the Disposal Cover, the bag can be used to seal the tray progressively, allowing cooked and uncooked foods to be added and segregated by the tray mouldings which the Disposal Cover fits and adheres to.

The Disposal Cover was designed to fit inside any of the current commercial systems with no modification required. With the bag in place on top of the tray it can be accommodated in the normal flight provisioning trolley. It will fit onto the passenger fold down table with the bag hanging either down behind the seat in front, or in between the passenger tables. At the end of the meal, with the bag folded on top of the tray, it will fit back onto the provisioning trolley.

Top   Airline Systems   Environment   Advertising Opportunity   Home Use   Fast Food Outlets.

Environment.

This product may need to be produced in an environmentally friendly version made of paper. We are looking at these, but have not yet found anything that compares on cost, and it will be an airline's decision on whether to incur the extra cost involved in using paper. However, if the product can be manufactured using polystyrene for the tray, and PVC for the bag, these can be detached and the entire waste portion is re-cyclable. We are committed to develop a fully recyclable product. Current trays are generally made of Thermosets which are difficult to re-cycle, which is why we would aim to make our trays out of a Thermoform which will allow us to recycle it fully.

The environment of the passenger is already crowded, making the passenger very conscious of waste. Currently 99% of sick bags used are used for the disposal of rubbish because there is no other place to put it. We could reverse this fundamental mis-use of the sickbag by providing the Disposal Cover bag, and by providing the meal early in the flight, eliminate the requirement for a sick bag at all. Alternatively, if sick bag use drops by 99% when the Diposal Cover is implemented, there will be no need to remove it from the seat-back pocket.

If the Disposal Cover is used effectively, there is a potentially huge saving in the cleaning and turnaround time of the aircraft, and therefore the cost of doing so.

Top   Airline Systems   Environment   Advertising Opportunity   Home Use   Fast Food Outlets.

Advertising Opportunity

Having a plastic bag fitted to the top of a food tray gives the airline an opportunity to reach each passenger, either through inserts inside the bag or direct printed marketing on it.

An insert could be a colouring game for kids, (disposing entirely of the need for separate kiddy packs.) Or it could be used as a duty free merchandising plug, possibly eliminating the need to print a costly brochure. Alterantively, it could be used as the launch pad for a marketing system such as air-miles with a prize puzzle on its reverse. Or it could be coupons for a store at the flight's destination.

The possibilities for this sort of direct mail, which will go to each passenger at minimal cost, are endless. And the lead time for changing the insert is down to a matter of the printing time, as we would develop a local printing company to feed to each of our outlets, so that by computer link, new graphics could be downloaded directly for your preferred messages.

We may well have missed out reams of good ideas and would be happy to discuss how they could be incorporated.

Top   Airline Systems   Environment   Advertising Opportunity   Home Use   Fast Food Outlets.

Home Use

This is the ultimate take-away dinner tray. For many people who work, the pre-prepared tray of food with attendant mode for waste disposal, is the perfect answer to the TV dinner.

A chain store could be a perfect outlet for these meals, so that you, as punter, could go down to your local Tesco or M&S and get a pair of trays and be assured of a quality meal at an affordable price - no washing up, easy waste disposal and the total cost of the exercise is exactly calculable.

There is the same option of a computerised service as is provided to the airlines. We can actually set up an entire chain which provides the output for the chains of supermarkets and provides the general public with a fast food outlet. This would allow customers to order full tailor-made meals. This would make it a premium product, aimed at the market who would pre-order and pre-pay for this specific service. At the cheaper end of the spectrum the meals would be pre-ordered on a basis of normal call off quantities for the instant market.

There are many situations in which this would be a godsend. Consider what you do when you rent a holiday house for three days. We could design a system where upon leaving the aircraft to collect a hire car, it could have in the boot an icebox packed with all the food in trays for your stay in a ready-to-eat form. By this means you could buy a week of meals at a time in a box allowing you get the lot home to your freezer/fridge in good condition. The contents of this chest of goodies would be assembled taking into account shelf life and freezability.

There are further uses of this basic concept, and they need to be explored with us in detail. Call us with your ideas, and we will develop them into a working solution for your needs. The cornerstone of what we will do is mutual benefit and sustainability to all parties.

Top   Airline Systems   Environment   Advertising Opportunity   Home Use   Fast Food Outlets.

Fast Food Outlets.

The American fast food chains have wrestled with the need to provide easy food for their visitors, while meeting the need to reduce packaging. Go into any of these joints and you will be amazed by how much packaging is required.

The Disposal Cover, because it can be closed and re-closed, is the solution to many of their problems, and has the added advantage of providing a receptacle for waste, almost forcing the customer to dispose of their meal debris in a 'friendly' manner with a large proportion of the waste recyclable. The fast food industry could be looking at removing the touchy subject of environmental sustainability from their list of problems.

The advertising opportunity, as outlined above, is different in fast food outlets, but just as direct. The special repeat deals could be printed on an insert in the bag. This space could be sold to nearby shopping outlets, to attract the fast food customer to a nearby shop as the next port of call. The opportunities are endless, and could pay their own way, and even be an income generating exercise.

Alternatively, there is the option to go to the biggest of the fastfood chains and sell the Disposal Cover to them exclusively and grow the fast food system with them. The value in doing this with an already active franchise system is speed of access and growth, cutting down the size of the required investment. We are open to ideas which promote mutual benefit and sustainability and growth.

Finally, any fast food outlet has an in car easy to eat market which is currently difficult to service as food in a car is messy. The disposal cover tray provides the perfect answer for this, giving the car user a simple meal and means of disposing of waste portions.

The options are endless. Call us with yours.

Top   Airline Systems   Environment   Advertising Opportunity   Home Use   Fast Food Outlets.