Brands from international to local sniff a big new market of self-heating food, as the hot pot market has become popular in recent years. It even attracts new comers for the competition. This year, three brands of self-heating food raised 100 million yuan within a week.

Affected by the COVID-19, lock-down and restriction policy hindered the purchasing of fresh food. Online shopping leads the consumption of self-heating food. According to Taobao, self-heating instant food ranked top selling products during January 20 to February 2 this year.

With a few steps, a hot self-heating hot pot is completed, no need fire and power!

Step 1: Put the food into inner-box and add water

Step 2: Add cold water to the heating pack

As ASKCI Consulting Co., Ltd’s （中商產業研究院）finding, the self-heating food market is expected to sprint from 3.5 billion yuan in 2019 to 4 billion yuan in 2020. With the popularity of self-heating food, self-heating food packaging has also attracted investors' attention. According to Transparency Market Research’s data, by the end of 2027, the global self-heating food packaging market is expected to reach about 77 million US dollars.

Plastic boxes are the main form of self-heating food packaging, which can help to keep warm.

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FAST: Demand For High-Speed Injection Packaging Boxes Skyrocketed

Due to the surge in Demand for plastic lunch boxes, “Fast” has become the key factor for self-heating food industry to maintain competitiveness.

"Since this year, orders for plastic lunch boxes for self-heating hot pots have been increasing. The key of self-heating hot pot is convenient. It can also be used in many outdoor activities, scientific investigations or army training. Its future is bright."- Mr. Wang Xingdong, general manager of Acmeplas.

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The plastic lunch box could prevent the inner heat pack from being hit, and also ensures that the self-heating hot pot will not collapse during the self-heating process.

It has high requirements on anti-dropping, high temperature resistance and sealing.

This requires super-precision thin wall injection molding solutions, high speeding injection molding machine, and accurate injection position.

The international brand Master Kong (康師傅控股) ‘s self-heating food product includes slow cooked beef. It applies RP packaging which allows for its re-cooking in 121 degrees Celsius while sterilizing. It is a breakthrough for the industry.

Master Kong has also launched self-heating rice products for the China markets to meet the needs.

However, the rapid development of self-heating food also faces different challenges, including competition from brands, products variety and green packaging solution.

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Considering that the consumers of self-heating food are mainly young people, new brand of self-heating food, Mo Xiaoxian caters to youth needs, designs small but rich packages.

It saves cost for transportation. It is reported that Mo Xiaoxian's repurchase rate is 30%, which is at a relatively high level in the industry.

In terms of packaging design of self-heating food, in addition to meeting the requirements of safety, hygiene, good sealing and good shock absorption performance.

It also caters to the needs of the young age for convenience, trends, personalization and environmental protection.

Under the rapid development of F&B industry, the demand for packaging surge. Food packaging and safety, sustainable development etc. have been the topics of much concern in the field in recent years. In order to create new opportunities for F&B packaging industry, Sino-Pack/PACKINNO2021 gathers well-known local and international exhibitors to showcase green materials, innovative technologies and packaging solutions.

Sino-Pack/PACKINNO2021 will be held in Guangzhou•China Import and Export Fair Complex (Area A) on March 4-6, 2021 covering the F&B and catering packaging industry.

Six theme zones are also featured this year, they are:

Visitor & Media Enquiry:

Ms. Tobey Tse/ Ms. Christina Chow

Phone: (852) 2516 3363/3523

Email: printpack.hkpr@adsale.com.hk

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