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Speciality Food Magazine

Hydropac: The Best can be the Cheapest!!

The most cost effective temperature controlled food shipment solutions for the environmentally conscious.

Hydropac Ltd is a specialist manufacturer of temperature controlled food shipment solutions and drinks cooling products. With its unique “purified and treated pocketed water products” and “seal through water technology”, Hydropac can guarantee its customers products that are hygienic, deliver consistent quality and value and maintain the cool chain requirement.

With over 10 years’ experience, Hydropac’s products have been designed specifically for each customer market resulting in a range of standard and special products and the opportunity for individual bespoke solutions.

Luxury Cuisine Shippers
These special Insulated Boxes are manufactured from closed cell non-cross linked polyethylene; a material that is fully recyclable; almost indestructible and fully re-usable. Hydropac Insulated Boxes are currently leading the foam box market in technical makeup for the following reasons:

1. Mitred Corners – all of Hydropac’s Foam Inserts have mitred corners giving a full thickness of foam around the customer’s product and preventing hotspots within the Insulated Box.
2. Brilliant White – food grade polyethylene; giving the end customer an Insulated Box that not only works technically but also looks great.
3. Closed Cell Construction – allowing for easier cleaning, leading to multiple uses; reducing your costs further whilst being kind to the environment.
4. Virtually indestructible Construction – ensuring that your product will arrive to your customer exactly as it left you … in perfect condition! Hydropac’s polyethylene foam will recover its shape, unlike polystyrene which will break.
5. Additional Cushioning – polyethylene foam is an ideal protector and will offer additional cosseting to your product on its journey to your customer.
6. Large Standard Range of Sizes – Hydropac holds a full range of sizes from 4Kg to 20Kg in stock ready for despatch.
7. Bespoke Solutions – as well as a good range of stocked Insulated Boxes, Hydropac will also manufacture bespoke solutions for you without charging a premium!
8. The Most Cost Effective System – the best truly can be the cheapest! For the environmentally-conscious user the Luxury Cuisine Shipper foam liner can be used again and again. The mechanics of this are simple and involves the final customer wrapping the liner up in a clean bin bag (or “post-it” back recycling bag supplied by Hydropac) and posting it back to the supplier at a cost of 30 to 40 pence only.

Ice Sheets

• Hydropac ready hydrated Ice Sheets are the cost effective solution to your cool chain requirements. As with Hydropac’s other products, they have been specifically designed with the end user in mind and have the following attributes.
• Hygienic – food grade film with sterile contents (contents are certified weekly to be free from contaminants).
• Ready hydrated – for immediate use
• Pocketed – for flexibility and added reliability
• Does not stick together when frozen – as there is no external water present, nor will the products leak water during transit.
• Low labour costs – the Ice Sheets are placed in the freezer directly and do not need to be dunked or soaked to activate before freezing.
• Delivery from stock – always available next day!
• A Full Range of Sizes – from 100g to 1Kg as standard and others available on request.
• Bespoke Solutions – for regular users the option of printing your brand is available.

As well as the Luxury Cuisine Shippers and Ice Sheets, Hydropac also supplies Insulated Carry Home Bags; Fish Shipment Systems and Bubble Wrap.

Hydropac markets its products into the Fine Food Forum, particularly targeting the mail order arena. Mike Collins, the Managing Director of Hydropac, says the following: “We continually strive to give our customers the best products at the best price; we listen to feedback and act accordingly. We will tailor our solutions to our customers’ needs and customer service is first on the agenda at all times.”

Regulations: Hydropac keeps up to date on ever changing legislation and is waiting to receive a draft copy of the pending regulations that cover mail order food shipment; when they do finally introduce new legislation, Hydropac will ensure that its systems comply; taking the worry away from its customers.

Beyond this Hydropac is also working on helping customers comply with the “EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste 94/62/EC”. This directive appears to be targeting the Country from 2005 in the following manner: a recycling target of 55- 70%, with recycling targets by weight per material of 60% for glass, 55% for paper/board, 50% for metals and 20% for plastics. Mr Collins made the following statement on this subject… “We continually work to help the environment and offer “post-it back recycling bags for our products”; those that put the effort in to recycle their foam liners can save up to 70% of the costs by re-using 3 or 4 times; it may be less business for us in the long term; but we value real relationships with our customers and hare happy to work with them on this front; we genuinely have a concern for the disposal of packaging products.”

The Importance of Temperature Control: Clearly it is important to keep fresh produce at or below fridge temperature of 8 Centigrade and, whilst Hydropac designs its systems around a minimum transit time of 24 hours, it is important that its customers package their products correctly. During development of Hydropac’s predictive shipping software several key factors became apparent and they are tips that Hydropac is prepared to share for all to benefit!

Tip 1: Always insulate the produce from the Ice Sheet; failure to do this results in the Ice Sheet losing its energy prematurely by attempting to freeze the product! This leads to a reduced shipping time; and the potential for the produce to climb above the 8 degree threshold.

Tip 2: Always ensure that the produce is at the lowest temperature prior to shipping; if possible 1 or 2 Centigrade. Keeping the produce as cold as possible without actually freezing it enables an extended shipping time with a lower number of Ice Sheets.

Hydropac is happy to share its knowledge with existing and potential customers so if you want a chat simply ring the sales team on 01494 530182.