The frozen food market is growing worldwide. In Europe alone, it is experiencing a growth of over 5 % year on year and is expected to amount to 114 billion euros by 2027. Although the consumption of frozen food is growing throughout the population, it is especially popular among millennials, who stand for over 48% of the consumption in Europe.
In 2020, Germany was the most important frozen food market in Europe with an estimated market share of 19 % amounting to a market value of 12 billion EUR.
🇩🇪 Vera, 25, a student who lives alone in her apartment in Berlin, finds it convenient to always have some frozen food in the freezer.
“Even though I do not eat a lot of ready-made food, I do make sure that I always have some frozen vegetables or wok mixes in case I want to cook something quickly. I also keep frozen fruit like mango or berries in my freezer because it so much easier to only thaw what I need. The fresh boxes in the store are usually too big for me and I end up throwing away the food because it has gone bad”, she says.
🇪🇸 Juan, 42 lives in the centre of Barcelona. Although an avid eater of fresh food, his preferences changed a bit during the pandemic. Barcelona had very heavy lockdowns for months, and it became difficult to leave home for going shopping.
“I started ordering food online, but the downside is that there is a minimum spend for getting the food delivered to your home. While this isn’t an issue for a family that consumes large amounts of food, for me who lives alone it meant buying a lot of food that I ended up throwing away.”
The solution was to buy more frozen produce. Although the lockdowns have since been lifted and Juan enjoys fresh fruit again, the habit of stocking up the freezer has stayed.
“Some people think frozen food isn’t that healthy, but I’ve read up online and discovered that frozen food actually retains its nutrients really well. The huge advantage with frozen food is that I consume most of it and rarely throw away the food. So it’s more sustainable and I waste less money.”
🇸🇪 Einar, 41, a father living in Stockholm with his wife and two small children, buy a lot of food as frozen.
“With small children and two working parents, we try to source our food very efficiently. The solution is buying it online and have it home delivered once a week. We buy fish, meat, vegetables, berries and ready-made meals as frozen. The food is often actually fresher compared to non-frozen, and we rarely have to throw away food because it has gone bad.”
Although the consumption of frozen food is growing the fastest among older millennials, senior consumers are increasingly keen on it too.
🇩🇪 Ingrid, 75, who lives in Germany with her husband, finds frozen food to be convenient.
“Cooking is getting harder for me so ready-made frozen meals are a very convenient alternative. There is a lot of variety, and the food quality is really good these days. A bonus is that my husband and I can eat what we like best, we do not have to eat the same food!”
Walki's portfolio of recyclable paper and plastics
There is no magic one material when it comes to packaging for frozen food. Walki has a wide portfolio of products to answer to different needs.
Walki®EVO Seal Seal and Walki®Opti Seal for recyclability and excellent barriers.
Walki®EVO Seal and Walki®Opti Seal are intended especially for pillow-pouches for frozen food. Walki®EVO Seal is based on paper packaging with dispersion coating as barrier against water vapour and grease while Walki®Opti Seal has an optimised PE-extrusion coating.
Both are suitable for all kind of frozen food: vegetables, seafood, bakery products to name a few. With this material you get good machinability and high speed on the filling lines. The pouches can also be heat-sealed with tight seams.
The dispersion coating makes Walki®EVO Seal recyclable in the waste-paper stream without any separation process, while the minimised PE-coating on Walki®Opti Seal makes it suitable to recycled with paper with an acceptable fibre yield.
Lamibel®MDO-PE for a puncture resistant barrier
A mono-materials packaging with greater stiffness and high transparency.
Lamibel®MDO-PE is a material for pillow-poucher for frozen seafood made of reverse printed MDO-film and solvent-free laminated with low sealing LDPE. Thanks to the MDO technology, the film thickness is minimized while performance is maximized by replacing other sorts of materials such as PP- or PET-films. The combination of two PE-films is making the packaging fully recyclable in the plastics stream. The stretched film has better optics with high stiffness and mechanical properties than standard PE. The film can also be transparent, allowing the consumer to see the product.
Lamibel®MDO-PE has a high puncture resistance to tearing or breakage, prevents loss and spillage in packaging. It is an ideal material for all type of packaging (doypack, flowpack, pouches, etc.) and all kind of frozen food like vegetables, sharp-edges seafood and bakery.
Walki®Pack Tray
Walki®Pack Tray is a tray for frozen ready-made meals, designed to replace aluminium, plastic or plastic-coated trays. It offers many benefits: it is not only easy to fill, transport, store but also makes meals more convenient. The fibre-based tray is safe to use in microwaves and in conventional ovens up to 220 degrees for up to 60 minutes. The tray can be tailor made with or without release surface. It is available with a white or brown food-contact surface. It’s 100% PET free and recyclable in the paper stream.
Juan, de 42 años, vive en el centro de Barcelona. Aunque él consumía alimentos frescos con frecuencia, sus preferencias cambiaron un poco durante la pandemia. Barcelona sufrió un fuerte cierre durante meses y salir de casa para ir a comprar era difícil.
“Empecé a pedir comida por Internet, pero el tener que llegar a un pedido mínimo para que te lleven la comida a casa era un inconveniente. Esto puede no ser un problema para una familia que consuma una gran cantidad de comida, para mí, que vivo solo, significaba comprar mucha comida que acababa tirando.”