Plastics packaging for food is changing to meet the new pattern of lifestyle in the economically developed regions of North America and Europe. An increasing level of two working parents, longer commuting hours and extended working hours-to face stiffer competition in all business sectors, has demanded quicker methods of cooking of fresh or frozen food products. The food products are either required to cook in microwave ovens or conventional ovens. The new trend even demands use of both the types of ovens for cooking. The material requirement for dual oven application is more stringent than microwave cooking. The plastics products for dual oven application are required to withstand a wider temperature range from sub zero to almost 200 °C. In addition, barrier properties are increasingly becoming important to maintain freshness of the food products.

Several new plastics packaging products have been commercially used to meet these requirements. The conventional solid as well as foamed Styrenic thermoformed products have been facing competition from solid and foamed PP products, which use newly developed grades designed for easy thermo formability. EVOH grades of improved thermo formability have been introduced to improve barrier properties of PP products. GE has also introduced PPO grades for microwave packaging. The newest material for this application is Crystallisable PET (CPET) developed by Eastman. To achieve a balance of properties, the crystallization characteristics of PET are required to be accurately tuned. New packaging trays based on these products have been found to meet the dual oven requirements. They are available in solid as well as foamed structure. EVOH core layer further enhances the barrier properties of CPET. To support the growth opportunities, equipment suppliers are developing several types of machineries. The most prominent equipment suppliers in this sector are: Brown Machine, Illig, Ital Products and Paul Kiefel.