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Companies constantly innovate with technology and redesign their packaging to get better performance, improve marketability and enhance sustainability. Here’s a look at three new or redesigned packaging solutions on Packaging Dive’s radar.

Sleeveless pockets

Nestlé USA’s Hot Pockets is ditching a well-known piece of packaging to reduce the amount of material it uses. The food brand is eliminating the microwave susceptor crisping sleeves, which it says will avoid more than 6.6 million pounds of packaging material waste per year, including 5 million pounds of paper, a spokesperson said via email. The company says the move will also reduce product cooking time.

“This year, we streamlined our packaging for quicker prep and cook time to give Hot Pockets fans what they love, without the crisping ‘sleeve’ and without sacrificing the crispiness factor," Lauren Kelly, brand marketing manager, said in a news release.

Squeezing in more PCR

Hair care brand Overtone redesigned the packaging for its products sold exclusively at Target. The product tubes now are made from 30% PCR and the outer cartons are made with FSC-certified material.

The packaging update comes as Overtone joins the Target Zero initiative. Participants work to make packaging refillable, reusable or compostable; manufacture it with recycled content; or switch its substrate from plastic to paper, aluminum, steel or glass.

Drying out

Henkel Adhesive Technologies worked with Panverta to create films for dry foods that it says have a stronger oxygen barrier layer than conventional alternatives. While competing products might contain as many as five layers, the enhanced barrier allows this packaging to have fewer layers.

For these films, the partners switched from multimaterial designs to monomaterial polypropylene, Henkel said in a news release. The company said its coating works on PP or polyethylene and reduces the amount of material used in packaging. The monomaterial packaging doesn’t need to be separated for recycling like multimaterial options do, according to the company.

Henkel says the product is certified as recyclable by Germany-based group cyclos-HTP, in addition to being recognized by the Association of Plastic Recyclers for meeting guidance for PE films and flexible packaging.