Three 2026 redesigns: fiber trays, metal reuse, lighter PET

Most packaging sustainability stories arrive as claims: a material is lighter, a system is circular, a process cuts carbon. The harder question for anyone specifying packaging is what actually changed, and what it cost to change it. Three examples from this month give a useful cross-section: a fiber tray aimed at plastic MAP trays, a municipal reuse scheme that rejected plastic outright, and a lightweighting push in PET spirits bottles.

Design for recycling: a dry-formed fiber tray takes on plastic MAP trays

Swedish packaging technology company Yangi has moved its Cellera dry-forming process from pilot to production-ready status, with the tray showcased at Interpack 2026. The Cellera dry-forming process skips the water used in wet molded pulp, producing deep, rigid fiber trays in 4-second cycles that are designed to run on existing high-speed tray sealers for meat, poultry, fish, and ready meals. That last detail matters more than it sounds: a tray that needs new sealing equipment is a much harder sell to a converter than one that drops into an existing line.

The efficiency numbers are the headline. The technology delivers high cycle or high efficiency machine performance, four seconds of cycle times, and around 80% reduced carbon footprint along with more than 50% reduced electricity use. Packaging Europe’s coverage of the launch adds that the goal is to replace plastic MAP trays while extending product shelf life, unlocking a “premium” surface quality, and achieving an approximately 80% lower CO2 impact compared with plastic equivalents. The tray itself is made from renewable and responsibly sourced virgin fibres.

Why it works for designers: dry forming removes the two things that have historically kept fiber out of chilled and frozen protein categories, namely poor surface finish and limited shape depth. The tray is said to maintain the necessary shelf life for protein and ready meal products and is compatible with Modified Atmosphere Packaging. That combination, deep draw plus MAP compatibility, is what has made plastic hard to displace in this category until now.

The trade-off is one every fiber conversion runs into eventually: barrier performance and recyclability pull in opposite directions. Recyclability is dependent on the selected laminate, with certain structures designed to be compatible with existing paper recycling systems, supporting fiber recovery after use. In practice that means a specifier choosing this tray still has to pick a laminate, and that choice will determine whether the finished pack actually recycles well in a given market’s paper stream. A tray made from virgin fiber, however renewable, is also not a recycled-content story; it’s a carbon and plastic-substitution story. Those are different claims and should be labelled as such.

Lesson for other designers: when you swap a plastic format for fiber, the material switch is the easy part. The laminate or coating you add back to hit barrier and sealing requirements is where the recyclability outcome is actually decided, and it needs engineering attention as early as the material choice itself.

Reuse by design: Hawaii’s Ho’i program chooses steel over plastic

In Hilo, on Hawaii Island, a coalition led by the nonprofit Perpetual together with Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island is rolling out an open-loop reusable foodservice container system called Ho’i, the Hawaiian word for “return”. Perpetual is preparing to help launch an open-loop reuse program spanning foodservice establishments in Hilo, Hawai’i, dubbed Ho’i. Civil Beat describes it as the nation’s first comprehensive city-wide reuse program, backed by over $3 million in seed funding, timed to a county ban on single-use plastic serviceware. That ban, Bill 83, unanimously passed through the Hawaiʻi County Council last fall.

The material choice is the interesting part for designers. The county has an ordinance that in part defines reusable foodservice ware as not having a base constructed of plastic, which restricted the container options. Local experience reinforced the rule rather than just constraining it: insight from other open-loop pilots, such as Closed Loop Partners’ Petaluma Project in California, revealed that some users weren’t a fan of plastic for certain use cases, such as drinking hot beverages out of plastic cups. The project team landed on stainless steel. The Hilo project partners, which include nonprofit, government and university entities as well as German reuse service provider Vytal, are going with a range of stainless steel containers, although plastic lids are allowed so users can see the food inside.

The model itself is simple to explain to users: containers are available to check out like library books and, as with the library, cost nothing unless people fail to return them. Sourcing them was not simple. Packaging Dive reports the scale of the first order: 20,000 total containers purchased up front, across 11 different container formats, from 4 different suppliers spanning three countries, at a cost of $100,000. That spread across suppliers and countries is itself a data point worth noting for any US brand or city planning reuse: metal foodservice packaging adapted to US serving sizes and sealing needs is not yet a deep, single-source market.

Why it works: a hard material rule removed the temptation to default to “durable plastic” and forced a design process built around local behavior and local regulation, rather than around whatever a single supplier already had in a catalogue. The trade-off is weight and embodied carbon per unit at the point of manufacture; stainless steel containers only pay that back after enough wash-and-return cycles, and achieving those cycles depends on return logistics the program is still building out. There’s also a cost-per-container signal here: at roughly $5 per unit for the initial order, these containers need a genuinely durable, high-turn reuse loop to make economic sense against single-use alternatives.

Lesson for other designers: reuse systems live or die on local rules and local behavior, not on a generic “best material” answer. A format that works in one city’s reuse pilot may fail a different jurisdiction’s definition of what counts as reusable, so check the local ordinance before specifying the container, not after.

Lightweighting: Berlin Packaging’s PET range for spirits

At Bar Convent Berlin 2026, hybrid packaging supplier Berlin Packaging introduced a new PET collection aimed specifically at the spirits category, a segment that has leaned heavily on glass. Packaging Insights reports that the Lighter Side of Spirit PET range targets lightweighting, recycled content, and alternative packaging formats for the spirits sector. The range comprises a collection of PET packaging for the spirits market, including the Alco, Flask, and Fat bottle designs, available in most conventional market sizes as well as a 50 mL miniature. The company states that the bottles’ features can also be made with fully recycled materials.

Sustainable Packaging News adds detail on the design intent: the collection is described as a structured and concrete multi-material approach within Berlin Packaging’s spirits offering, providing producers with a selection of PET containers designed to deliver practicality, lightweight performance, safety, and sustainability. Alongside the PET range, the company also launched a glass collection for the growing no- and low-alcohol category: the Sculpting – Ribs glass bottle collection responds to the continued growth of the no and low alcohol sector.

Why it works: spirits packaging has been slow to move off glass partly because weight and shape carry brand cues that producers are reluctant to give up. Offering PET in multiple pre-engineered shapes, including a 50 mL miniature aimed at travel retail and sampling, gives brand owners a lightweighting route without asking them to design a bottle from scratch.

The trade-off is one that applies to any PET-versus-glass substitution in a premium category: PET is lighter to transport and typically has a lower per-unit carbon footprint than glass, but glass is infinitely recyclable in principle and often carries a quality perception that some spirits brands won’t give up regardless of the sustainability case. The supplier’s own claim that bottles “can also be made” with fully recycled content is conditional, not a default; buyers should ask what recycled-content percentage they’re actually getting, since the announcement does not specify one.

Lesson for other designers: lightweighting sells faster when it comes with ready-made formats a brand can adopt quickly, rather than requiring a bespoke redesign. But a lighter bottle and a recycled-content bottle are two separate claims. Confirm which one a supplier is actually delivering before it goes on a label or a sustainability report.

At a glance

Example	Jurisdiction	What changed	Trade-off to watch
Yangi Cellera fiber tray	EU (Sweden-based, shown at Interpack, Germany)	Plastic MAP tray replaced with dry-formed virgin fiber, same sealing lines	Recyclability depends entirely on the laminate chosen for barrier and sealing
Ho’i reuse program	US (Hawaii County)	Single-use plastic foodservice ware replaced with checked-out stainless steel containers	Higher embodied carbon per unit; needs high return rates to pay back
Berlin Packaging PET spirits range	EU (launched at Bar Convent Berlin, Germany)	Glass spirits bottles offered a lighter PET alternative in pre-engineered shapes	Recycled content is optional, not stated as a default percentage

What to do now

If you’re evaluating a fiber tray conversion, ask the supplier for the specific laminate or barrier structure proposed for your product, and check it against your target market’s paper recycling stream before committing, not after.
If you’re planning a reuse pilot in a US state or city, check the local definition of “reusable foodservice ware” early. A material ban written into an ordinance, as in Hawaii County, can rule out options that otherwise look practical.
If you’re comparing PET and glass for a premium category, ask suppliers for a specific recycled-content percentage and a weight comparison per unit, not just the claim that recycled material “can” be used.
Where PFAS-free claims appear on food-contact packaging, remember the EU’s food-contact PFAS limits under Regulation (EU) 2025/40 have applied since 12 August 2026 with no stock-exhaustion period; treat such claims as a baseline requirement in the EU, not a differentiator.