Imperial Bag & Paper showcased at the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show.
–Catering Box
–Pack n Wood
–Verterra Palm Leaf Dinnerware
-Perfect pairing salad container insert and parfait cup insert
-CMS flavorseal sous vide bags, seasoned roasting bags, & water bath cooking appliances
–Floor buffing machine
2013 International Restaurant & Foodservice Show
This year’s Imperial Bag & Paper booth had a ton of action going on throughout the 3 days of the show. The theme of our booth was “Imperial Bag & Paper AND Our Customers….A Perfect Marriage.” Our booth was the creation of our “mad genius” sales manager, Chris Freeman. He has come up with some creative ideas on how to show off our eco-friendly and traditional food containers in the past, but I think to date, this one takes the cake……..or to keep with the theme, the wedding cake! We had a huge booth this year, broken down into 3 main sections: 1) the wedding area, 2) a create & innovate area with some great food packaging ideas and 3) a live webcast studio area.
The wedding area was a hit with many of the show attendees. We had a Mr. & Mrs. Imperial Bag & Paper, both dressed in wedding appropriate attire. Mr. & Mrs. Imperial Bag & Paper were regularly bringing prospective customers and current Imperial customers into our booth to be “married to their Imperial salesperson” or to Mr or Mrs Imperial. Definitely a different idea for a stuffy trade show!
For our products area, we had several great vendors showing off their food packaging products. We had 1) CMS Flavorseal demonstrating their sous vide and flavor bags, 2)VerTerra making a strong comeback with their plates and bowls made out of sustainably collected leaves 3) a href=”http://the-complete-package.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/PACKNWOOD-Catalog_lowres.pdf” target=”_blank”>Pack n Wood had their entire line of eco-friendly food containers and catering disposables on display 4) Letica BIODEGRADABLE plastic cups 5) Inline Plastics salad bowl and parfait cups with their respective inserts and perhaps the biggest success story of our booth (aside from the lucky men who got married off to Mrs Imperial) 6) the Catering Box!
CMS Flavorseal got things cooking literally and figuratively speaking! They had their corporate chef cooking up delicious meats that were flavored by their flavor bags and cooked in their sous vide bags. What exactly is sous vide cooking? Unless you’re a contestant on Top Chef, you probably need an education like I did! In a nutshell, sous vide, is a method of cooking food placed in a heavy duty heat resistant bag, which is then cooked in a high heat water bath. The foods flavor and juices, as well as nutrients and color are maintained, if not increased by sous vide. I also learned that cooking with sous vide increases the yield of meat by about 10% because of the juices being maintained in the meat there is virtually zero shrinkage. This will definitely help increase foodservice operators’ profits!
VerTerra leaf bowls and plates are a great eco-friendly option for catering and events. They hold up to silverware great, make a great impression with function guests, and are also a great story. VerTerra plates and bowls are made from sustainably collected leaves. The leaves are not harvested, but are actually collected from the forest floor! These leaves are then brought to the manufacturing facility where they are created into plates and bowls through a proprietary process using pressure to fuse the leaves together. No glue or bonding agents are used to create these sustainable catering plates and bowls!
Pack N Wood eco-friendly packaging has so many different options. You really should check out the link to their products page because I cannot do the product justice in a blog. Whatever your disposable catering needs are, use Pack n Wood. Their products are made from recycled cardboard, bamboo, sustainably forested wood, and other sustainable materials. They have skewers, boxes, food cones, food trays, bowls, and many other items.
Letica Biodegradable PET Plastic Cups are just like your clear iced coffee cups except these are biodegradable. The way this works is that when plastic is formed the organic matter in the petrol based raw material are removed. Well with the biodegradable cups, this organic matter is not removed. When these cups are disposed of in an active landfill, the micro-organisms that help with decomposition are attracted to the organic matter that is still present in the biodegradable cups. While the biodegradation process does take a bit of time (3-4 years), the cups do biodegrade with no chemical additives. Also these cups can be placed into the recycling loop as PET is the plastic that is most commonly recycled.
Inline Plastics has a tamper evident salad bowl (TR32) and grab and go cup (TS12CCR) now have inserts. The insert for the salad bowl, can hold 5 salad toppings separately from the greens. This helps keep the salad greens as well as the toppings fresher longer, thus increasing shelf life. This is the same concept for the grab and go cup insert. Keep the granola separate from the yogurt or the hummus separate from the chips in the same container. Definitely makes a nice presentation and point of sale offering!
The Catering Box was definitely the big hit at the show. Hundreds of people walked away from our booth with a sample of the Catering Box. This box is designed to hold 1 full size steam table full of catered food, or 2 ½ size steam tables full of catered food. It also has a little bit of extra room for utensils, serving spoons, serving tongs, etc. There are 2 depths available the regular box holds the medium or shallow pans, while the jumbo will hold the deep pans.
This year all the action and excitement experienced at the Imperial Bag & Paper Company Show Booth #1631 was broadcasted LIVE on the Internet. Watch the videos below to see all the fun we had.