PP sheet application case: ideal choice for rice steaming boxes

Background introduction

In the fast-paced life, ready-to-eat food has become an important choice for modern people’s diet. As a packaging method that can take into account convenience and nutritional value, rice steaming boxes have been widely used in the food industry. This packaging must meet multiple requirements such as high-temperature steaming, strict sealing and food safety. PP (polypropylene) sheet has become the preferred material for thermoformed steaming boxes due to its unique properties, providing companies with a new solution.

Technical characteristics and advantages of PP sheet

High temperature tolerance: PP sheet can withstand high-temperature sterilization up to 121°C, and can even maintain a stable shape during a 30-minute steaming process without deformation or softening, fully meeting the needs of rice steaming boxes.

Food safety and environmental protection: PP sheet is a food-grade material, which has passed multiple certifications such as FDA and EU, and does not contain harmful substances. In addition, its recyclable characteristics are in line with the environmental protection trend of modern society and reduce the impact of plastic on the environment.

Superior physical properties:
PP sheets have good toughness, impact resistance and tensile resistance. They can not only maintain integrity under high temperature conditions, but also resist external forces during transportation and storage.

Excellent sealing:
PP sheets are highly compatible with heat-sealing films, forming an excellent sealing effect, which can effectively prevent rice from deteriorating due to water loss or external pollution, and extend the shelf life.

Lightweight and economical:
Compared with other materials, PP sheets have a lighter weight, which reduces logistics costs and production energy consumption.

Application case details

A large food processing company plans to launch a microwave steamed rice product, and its key requirements are:

Suitable for high-temperature steaming and sterilization: The packaging needs to be resistant to high temperatures and no harmful substances are precipitated.

Possess strong pressure resistance: The box body needs to remain intact during transportation and shelf display.

Economical and efficient: Material costs and processing efficiency need to be controlled.

After market research and multiple experiments, the company finally chose PP sheets with a thickness of 0.8mm, applied thermoforming technology to make rice steaming boxes, and successfully achieved the following goals:

The box body remains stable during the steaming process: even after a long period of high-temperature steaming, the box body does not deform or break.

Food-grade safety guarantee: consumers do not need to worry about the release of harmful substances when heating in the microwave.

The packaging is both beautiful and functional: moderate transparency, which is conducive to consumers’ intuitive experience of the product, and the box body is easy to open and seal.

Once the steaming box was launched, it was highly recognized by consumers for its convenience and safety, and market sales rose rapidly.

PP sheet production process

PP sheet production goes through the following steps:

Raw material selection: Use high-purity polypropylene raw materials to ensure excellent basic performance.

Ingredients and melt extrusion: By adding antioxidants and heat stabilizers, the high-temperature performance of the sheet is improved.

Cooling molding and cutting: Precisely control the thickness and size to meet the needs of thermoforming.

Quality inspection: Each batch of products is strictly tested, including temperature resistance, sealing and food safety.

Comparison with other materials

Compared with traditional PVC and PET materials, PP sheets perform particularly well in high temperature environments:

• Environmental protection: PP sheets are chlorine-free and more environmentally friendly.
• Price advantage: lower raw material costs and production process energy consumption.
• Wide range of applications: not only suitable for rice steaming boxes, but also for other thermoformed packaging, such as fast food boxes, lunch boxes, etc.

Market prospects

As consumers’ demand for convenient food packaging continues to increase, PP sheets have become an important material in the food packaging industry due to their high temperature tolerance and food safety performance. In the future, with the further optimization of process technology, the transparency, flexibility and processing performance of PP sheets will continue to improve to meet more diverse application scenarios.