Now in supermarkets, and grocery stores everywhere you that plastic box in which strawberries, grapes, and many different fruits and vegetables are packed, those are called PUNNET.
Punnets in simple term is a small box or square basket for the gathering, transport, and sale of fruit and vegetables. Punnet traveled a lot in history to become a new-age packaging solution typically for small berries susceptible to bruising, spoiling and squashing that is, therefore, best kept in small rigid containers.
History-In the late eighteenth century, strawberries and some soft fruits were sold in pottles, and conical woodchip baskets (see illustration, right), the tapering shape is thought to reduce damage to fruit at the bottom.They were stacked, fifty or sixty together, into square hampers for transport to the market.
Further developments in Pottles had been done, which replaced in the mid-1800s by the more practical rectangular punnet. The terms 'pottle' and 'punnet' were often used interchangeably. As the conical pottle had given way to the punnet, being mainly manufactured in with softwood type Deal, or the more preferred willow, by hundreds of women and children.
Development- Initially, punnets are used to collect the fruits and vegetables directly from the orchard and farms, but in the modern world they are now used to gather, transport them to protect against external factors such as bruising, spoiling, squashing as well as to increase the shelf life of the product.
Contemporary punnets are generally made in a variety of dimensions of semi-rigid, transparent, lightweight PET(Polyethylene terephthalate ) material, which provide the freedom to see to the consumer without hampering the product physically by touching in the shop, supermarket, or grocery store point of sale.
Now the new age punnets are made of pulp of different materials like Baggasse, and Wood Pulp as they are perceived as the sustainable solution. These pulps are molded into Punnet shapes and make them 100% recyclable, biodegradable, and manufactured by renewables resources.
Many innovations are have been done and still in progress to differentiate new shapes and thinking packaging development in terms of increasing aesthetic by printing and through structural designing for better shape and strength. These types of packaging help to think about the new optimization in terms of supply chain and logistics for these perishables items.
Big players like Smurfit Kappa, T&B Containers, Royal Interpack, Quinn Packaging Ltd, and Paccor Netherlands BV are enhancing the Punnet market by adding innovations and new products.
