9fbtechreview.comDECEMBER 2024Since then, we have developed a relationship founded and nurtured by mutual trust and respect. Through this longstanding partnership, we collaborated to create an innovative, award-winning solution for condiment and sauce dispensing that our customer successfully implemented into its restaurant operations in recent years. Previously, our customers used a variety of rigid containers for condiment and sauce dispensing, which were expensive, bulky to store, inefficient to ship, and operationally challenging. The QSR industry requires portion control and efficient use of limited back-of-house space. Not only did our customers' rigid containers need replacing, but we also saw the opportunity for restaurants across our industry to benefit from our innovation with Sealed Air. Innovation Evolution Working closely with Sealed Air, we developed an innovative solution for condiment dispensing. After careful testing, iteration, and vetting, the CRYOVAC® brand FlexPrep® portion-dispensing pouches were born. FlexPrep® pouches provide precise portion-dispensing for condiments, designed to facilitate the fast and easy changeover of food products. Formed and filled using Sealed Air's unique equipment at GSF's U.S. facilities, we distribute the final packaged product to customers' QSR locations across the country. There, back-of-house employees use the pouches, paired with a custom dispensing unit, to provide portion-controlled consistency for each condiment, every time it's served in a menu item. Beyond Benefits: Changing the Food Industry FlexPrep® has not only brought value to our customers; it has also benefitted GSF internally from a manufacturing position. Today, GSF packages more than 250,000 pounds of sauce per day using just three CRYOVAC® brand FlexPrep® portion-dispensing systems, with plans to install additional systems. Moving from the prior rigid format to FlexPrep® portion-dispensing systems has made GSF more operationally efficient by reducing our maintenance and our labor costs. The decreased equipment footprint created valuable floor space, the single-operator functionality reduced labor requirements, and the pouches' light weight has also decreased our shipping costs. The benefits our QSR customers have experienced from FlexPrep® include increased productivity in back-of-house operations, product yield gains, and more efficient restaurant storage capabilities. These three efficiency benefits enable speed, a benefit that's paramount in the fast-food industry.However, speed doesn't have to compromise safety. GSF has upheld our highest food quality standards through the minimized risk of foreign materials getting into the package, as Sealed Air engineers the FlexPrep® packaging with a unique, frangible seal technology that allows the pouch to open without the need for a sharp object. From a sustainability standpoint, the benefits of these flexible pouches amount to 85 percent less plastic use than previous containers doing the same amount of work. With sustainability as a guiding principle at GSF, reducing waste in landfills delivers a high-priority benefit to our operation, our communities, and our planet. The entire supply chain benefits from this innovative technology, and we seek to make those benefits visible to those beyond GSF, Sealed Air, and our customer that piloted this solution at restaurants throughout the United States. During the 2021 Technical Meeting for the Association for Dressings and Sauces (ADS), FlexPrep® earned recognition with the Package of the Year Award. Additionally, GSF honored its Liquid Products North America team with the company's prestigious and discerning Innovation Award in 2021. Awards and honors aside, our enduring culture of innovation will always be part and parcel of GSF's mutual success with our customers and industry partners like Sealed Air. We hope that today's innovations serve not only as improvements but also as inspirations for continued ingenuity and collaboration throughout the food service industry. From a sustainability standpoint, the benefits of FlexPrep® flexible pouches amount to 85 percent less plastic use than previous containers doing the same amount of work
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