Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited and AMB have unveiled a next-generation PET multilayer tray designed to be fully recyclable.
The innovation supports the European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and marks a major step toward true circularity for complex food packaging.
The new tray embeds recycled PET flakes at its core while using virgin food-grade PET for outer layers, ensuring food safety, optical clarity, and sealing performance demanded by brands and regulators. Most importantly, the tray remains recyclable after use, creating a material-to-material loop that keeps PET in high-value applications.
“This solution demonstrates that multilayer trays can meet circularity goals in practice, not just on paper,” said Paolo Cescutti, Chief Procurement Officer at AMB Spa. “It proves that innovation and collaboration can unlock new recycling pathways, even for the most complex packaging waste streams.”
The initiative positions Europe as a leader in sustainable packaging, offering a scalable alternative to downcycling and aligning with PPWR targets, including the goal of achieving an average of 30% recycled content in plastic packaging by 2030.
Multilayer trays are vital for protecting food and extending shelf life. A 2024 case study showed PET trays extended shelf life from 6 to 15 days, reducing food waste from 47% to 15%. Yet only about 30% of PET trays in Europe are currently recycled—a rate set to climb as innovations like this gain traction.
“A scalable innovation like this enables the tray industry to maintain high performance while moving decisively toward Europe’s circular-economy ambitions,” said Andy Motta, Business Director for Europe and Türkiye, CPET, at Indorama Ventures. “It reflects our commitment to solutions that strengthen recycling systems.”
Production is already underway at Indorama Ventures’ Verdun Recycling facility in France, with finished trays supplied to UK customers and broader European deployment in progress.
This development builds on a successful 2023 collaboration between the two companies, moving from concept to full-scale production of complex multilayer trays and enabling tray-to-tray recycling through a design-for-recycling approach.
