Sealed Air/Cryovac’s Marinade on Demand package was awarded the Highest Achievement trophy and the Gold Flexible Packaging Achievement Award for Technical Innovation for 2010 by the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA).

The award-winning package, produced in conjunction with Chicago Meat Authority for Schwan’s Home Service, Inc., combines marinade and fresh meat or poultry in a single package, where they remain in separate pockets until the end user is ready to marinate and cook. This is the second consecutive year that the Cryovac brand has received the packaging Linthicum, MD.-based trade group’s Highest Achievement honors.

The FPA award winners were revealed March 10 during a dinner ceremony held at the association’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. Cryovac’s Marinade on Demand package was among the 117 flexible packaging entries in this year’s competition, with 22 packages receiving Achievement Awards in the following categories: Printing Achievement, Technical Innovation, Packaging Excellence, and Environmental & Sustainability Achievement.

“The Marinade on Demand package is a prime example of the way an innovative package can revolutionize a product,” said William V. Hickey, president/CEO of Duncan, S.C.-based Sealed Air. “It is a great honor to be recognized with the Highest Achievement Award for two consecutive years by the Flexible Packaging Association for the inventive efforts we make in order to meet the growing needs of our customers.”

The package is a two-part, thermoformed rollstock package that separates fresh protein from a marinade, creating an easy and sanitary marinating process. Keeping the marinade separate from the meat allows the use of functional marinade ingredients such as acids, alcohols and tenderizers that can’t be used in pre-marinated meats because they can affect product texture and flavor over time.

When the end user is ready to marinate, he or she squeezes the marinade pocket, breaking the seal between the two pockets. Marinade is transferred to the protein side, beginning a marinating process that lasts as long as the user desires.

Cryovac’s on-demand marinade package also saves processors time and labor over pre-marinated meats, which may require processors to wash down equipment between different batches of marinade flavors. Instead, processors can easily add the marinade on the packaging station while running the package on their current thermoforming machines.

The packaging application also offers a wide range of benefits for the foodservice industry, including making menu expansion possible with a variety of marinades that can be used in different packages (as opposed to large-batch marination). Additionally, the package provides food safety benefits with hands-free marinating, reducing the sanitation concerns and labor associated with restaurant batch marination. Direct contact with raw meat is reduced, and employees no longer have to clean large containers used for restaurant batch marinating.

For more information, visit www.marinadeondemand.com.