This Valentine, count on Schoeller Allibert to deliver your ‘love fish’
This Valentine’s Day, why not surprise your loved one with a ‘love fish’? Also known as skrei, this cod variety is caught this time of year in the waters around Norway’s Lofoten islands. Especially soft and delicate, skrei needs to be handled with the utmost care on its trip from fishing boat to dining table. The best solution? Schoeller Allibert’s fish crates and retention pallets. They don’t just help preserve the texture and taste of the fish, they also maximise efficiency and profit for everyone along the fish industry’s value chain. How? Thanks to Schoeller Allibert’s pioneering, award-winning expertise, which goes back all the way to 1959.
Today, Schoeller Allibert is the leading supplier of reusable plastic packaging, providing profitable logistics solutions for agriculture, automotive and food industries, among many others. In fact, we’re the world’s number one provider of returnable transit packaging. It’s an enviable position we’ve achieved through decades of hard work. Our track record is especially long and distinguished when it comes to logistics for the fishing industry.
Back in 1959, Schoeller Allibert developed the first ever plastic fish box. Plastic fish boxes are now standard throughout the industry, but we’ve maintained our lead thanks to continuous innovation, in dialogue with the fishing industry itself. That’s why we manufacture packaging solutions that bring efficiency, savings and hygiene to the most demanding of food industries.
Freezing and cooking
As a provider of logistics solutions to a broad range of food industries, we understand the importance and variety of their respective needs and requirements.
Schoeller Allibert takes on these varying demands and, in close cooperation with all stakeholders, develops solutions that suit each industry perfectly, from ingredients supply to retail shelves, throughout the complex and automated intra-logistical stages, thanks to our custom packaging, handling and tracking solutions.
As for these packaging solutions, we offer a standard promise across all food industries in terms of:
Quality: Whatever the particular food industry, all products are specifically designed to meet its needs and preserve the quality of the product.
Efficiency: All products have standard dimensions, for optimal process flow and maximum logistics efficiency.
Durability: They are designed for a long life and manufactured to withstand an extreme range of environmental conditions, from blast freezing to steam cooking.
Hygiene: The packaging solutions are designed to avoid dirt traps and make cleaning easy.
Food safety: All food packaging solutions are food contact certified and comply with the latest EU and international food safety standards.
Circularity: Our food packaging solutions are returnable, reusable, and recyclable – ready today for the circular economy of tomorrow.
So far the general theory. But how does any of this help that Norwegian skrei onto your plate? The answer is our two main product categories for fishing industry logistics: fish crates and retention pallets. Both have been specifically – and ingeniously – designed to preserve fish in optimal qualities, and to optimise the logistical process for the benefit of producers, transporters and customers.
“Fish showroom”
Let’s start with the fish boxes. Large both in size and volume, they are designed to facilitate the transport and storage of freshly caught fish. Obviously, they’re strong, food-safe and suitable for use in freezers. And they’re 180° stack- and nestable. Their high nesting ratio reduces the logistics cost of the empty boxes returning. Some other striking features of our fish boxes:
Bi-colour design: This makes it easy to detect whether the boxes are stacked or nested, which helps operators – both human and automated – speed up the safe handling of the boxes.
Strong handgrips: These enable mechanical unloading from the fishing vessel to the dock.
Customisable: Customer name and logo – and other pertinent information - can easily be added to the sides of the box.
Hygienic: The fish boxes have a unique drainage system, thanks to their structured base.
Track- and traceable: Fish boxes are RFID-ready. Using this track and trace technology greatly improves logistical efficiency. Also, the EU will soon mandate traceability throughout the food supply chain as part of its ‘field to fork’ principle.
Naturally, we’re proud of our fish boxes. And we’re not the only ones. The fish boxes we’ve developed together with Deutsche See, a Hamburg-based fishing company, have won two prizes at the annual Industrie Forum Design awards in Hannover: a Design Award (2007) and a Gold Award (2008). Thanks to its stacking system, its fish-friendly fluid interior, its temperature monitoring and its after-freezing functions (among others), it’s been praised as “a genuine showroom for fresh fish”.
Up to 55% nesting ratio optimizing return transport
Next up: our retention pallets. In case you’re not familiar with the logistics process: fish goes in fish boxes. Fish boxes go in retention pallets. These help store fish in optimal conditions, which includes capturing the meltwater of the ice used to preserve the fish.
Schoeller Allibert’s retention pallets are hygienic, nestable (with a nesting ratio of up to 55%) and ideal for shipping both fish boxes and shellfish without getting the floor wet. Simply stack fish boxes onto the retention pallets. As the ice water melts, it flows out of the drain holes in the fish boxes and is captured by the retention pallets. Not only does this enhance the safety of workers on the factory floor, it also prevents contamination of the fish itself. And obviously, our retention pallets are strong, food-safe and designed to withstand a wide range of temperatures, from extreme cold to extreme heat. Some additional qualities of our retention pallets:
Easy to clean: The panels are flat, for easy access and easy cleaning. There are no ‘hard to reach’ areas.
Easy to handle: They open on all four sides, for easy maneuvering with pallet jacks or forklift trucks.
Track- and traceable: Retenpal 2.0, our latest innovative retention pallet, can be tracked and traced through RFID or via Schoeller Allibert’s own SmartLink® sensor technology.
Our latest retention pallet innovation, Retenpal 2.0, has 56 holding cells, can support a total load of up to 700 kg, and is able to retain up to 37 litres of fluid. Its design even limits wave effects during transport. No wonder it’s been called “the next generation in sustainable spill control solutions”, and it will optimise not just the fish industry. Retenpal 2.0 can also be used in other food and food processing industries, and it has applications in retail, industrial manufacturing, pharma and cosmetics, and chemicals and pooling.
As always, Schoeller Allibert is looking out for the interests of all stakeholders along the supply chain. If that helps your favourite fish restaurant to get a tasty piece of skrei on your plate, we’ll happily consider that a job well done.