A pack said to be the UK’s first ever for cooking sausages in the container was among four winners of a European Aluminium Foil Association (EAFA) Foil Pack of the Year 2003 trophy.

A radical departure from traditional sausage packaging, the heat-proof aluminium foil pack was produced by West Midlands-based Nicholl Food Packaging for Dalehead Foods’ ‘ready-to-eat’ sausages.

Strong enough to withstand the retail chain’s rigours, it has a modified internal atmosphere for extended shelf life and a ribbed, slotted trivet which allows fats and juices to separate cleanly without spattering. Tray and trivet are both pure aluminium for easier recycling.

Other trophy winners included Crown Food Europe’s Isy Pil, “easy and safe” opening system for Saupiquet’s rectangular fish cans. It exploits the strength and flexibility of coated 70µm foil both for its tabbed, peelable lid and to fully protect the autoclave-sterilised fish within. Crown says the alufoil surface offers the same potential for printed graphics as any other metal lid.

Also winners were Wipf’s laminate stand-up pack for Migros’s Golden Beans coffee ‘pods’, with laser-etched scoreline and a recloseable zipper, and Alcan Packaging’s single dose Aspirin Effect sachets, made for Bayer Vital in a ‘stick’ format from a PET/PE/alufoil laminate.