Around the holidays in particular, you’ve probably noticed a glut of aluminum trays and containers, not to mention aluminum foil wrap.
In truth, when it comes to food and catering, you find that aluminum containers are becoming staples in the kitchens of households, and catering businesses all across the globe, no matter the season. It offers a wide range of advantages for a variety of different cuisines and cooking methods, with the added bonus of being environmentally friendly and cost-effective.
From Holiday turkeys to summer BBQ cookouts, and even sandwiches, aluminum containers are quickly becoming the go-to packaging choice for households and catering businesses alike. But exactly what is it about aluminum containers that makes them such popular choices for food and catering, and why could they spell the end for harmful single-use plastics for good?
Here’s a look at several of the advantages associated with aluminum containers for food and catering.
High Heat Resistance
First and foremost, one of the primary reasons so many food and catering companies tend to gravitate toward aluminum foil and containers in general is its resistance to heat.
Aluminum is a material that has the ability to withstand extreme temperature fluctuations, particularly on the higher end of the scale. Aluminum trays and similar containers are therefore ideal for cooking, baking, grilling, smoking, and so much more besides.
Whether you’re crisping up the skin on your Thanksgiving turkey, or are smoking a juicy pork butt low and slow, aluminum containers are perfect. Not only do they withstand high and low temps, but they also help to distribute the heat consistently, ensuring everything cooks evenly, and more importantly, safely.
Food Safe
When dealing with food and drink, safety is paramount. Because of this, aluminum is the perfect packaging and storage material choice.
Unlike plastics, which could potentially contaminate produce with microplastics, aluminum is food-safe and offers a wide range of protective properties. Food and drink stored in aluminum containers and vessels will stay fresh for longer, will maintain a safe temperature for longer, and will be protected from things such as bacteria, moisture, oxygen, and sunlight, which can all result in spoilage.
Lightweight
Another advantage of aluminum containers is the fact that they’re so light in weight.
Aluminum may be a metal, but it’s one of the lightest metals in existence. This makes it perfect for food and catering purposes. Due to the fact that aluminum is so light in weight, it makes it much easier to carry various food items out of ovens, barbeques, smokers ETC, especially compared with other materials such as cast iron or pressed steel.
Aluminum is also the packaging material of choice for beverages such as sodas, beer, and even water. As it’s so light in weight, it’s portable and convenient, which leads us to…
Convenient and Versatile
As aluminum is so light in weight, it’s an extremely convenient packaging material, especially when it comes to the food and beverage industry.
Because of its lightweight properties, it’s highly portable and can easily be transported from one location to the next. For catering purposes, their shape is also very useful as they can easily be stacked on top of each other to save space. When they do need to be moved, as they’re so light in weight, this can be achieved with virtually no effort whatsoever.
Don’t let this lightweight material fool you, though, as it’s also extremely durable and versatile as well. It’s strong and will easily maintain its integrity and shape, without bending, folding, or collapsing upon itself, even when loaded full of heavy food items. Need to get a 20lb brisket from the smoker to the kitchen before it dries out? No problem, just throw it in an aluminum container, wrap it in foil, and you’re all set. The container will hold its shape with no issues whatsoever.
Aluminum helps caterers to not only prepare and store the food safely, but also to be much quicker and far more organized as well. Whether you’re catering for a small family function, or a grand wedding or banquet, aluminum foil containers are the proverbial aces to have up your sleeve.
Environmentally Friendly
Finally, another reason why aluminum containers are so popular in the food and drinks industry is due to the fact that they’re so environmentally friendly.
Take aluminum drinks cans for example. Research suggests that recycling aluminum beverage cans could save as much as 60 million tons of CO2e per year, by the year 2030. The key word here is ‘recycling’ which is where aluminum really shines.
Aluminum is one of the most recyclable materials in the world. It can be recycled indefinitely, as opposed to recyclable plastics, which can only be recycled a certain number of times. As well as that, recycling aluminum also utilizes far less energy than when recycling other materials, including other eco-friendly favorites such as glass and cardboard.
Very simply, recycling aluminum containers indefinitely means less waste, fewer greenhouse emissions, and less energy, which makes it far kinder to the environment.
