The German family company Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch is one of only a few manufacturers allowed to use the official brand name ’Rügenwalder Teewurst’ on its products. This traditional meat spread is now available in a modern cup tray, which was developed together with packaging expert SEALPAC to address new target markets.
Spread all over the world
Whoever loves ‘Teewurst’ is bound to connect it to the name Rügenwalde. This small city on the Baltic Sea was already famous for its meat spread in the mid nineteen hundreds. Family company Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch, with its main location in Bad Arolsen, can trace the tradition of the tasteful sandwich filling back to the year 1833. At that time Rügenwalder Teewurst was mainly produced for, and served to guests of the local family hotel. These guests were positively surprised and brought the product with them to other parts of the world. As such, spreading its fame.
By the time the Second World War drove the Rügenwalder family away from their home town, a large number of companies was involved in the production of the Rügenwalder Teewurst. In the new German Federal Republic, possibilities were explored to take up the traditional production again. It was a federal court that confirmed the official brand name ’Rügenwalder Teewurst’, and clearly stated that this brand was only to be used by companies with their origins in Rügenwalde. These days only three manufacturers meet those requirements, amongst which Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch.
Traditional recipe, right ingredients, long maturation
What is it that makes the Rügenwalder Teewurst so unique, explaining the enthusiasm for this particular meat spread? The traditional and strongly guarded recipe, which exclusively uses high quality raw materials, is only part of the secret. In addition there is the artisan maturation process. Common Teewurst matures for about two days, but Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch gives its products a full week. The unique aroma comes from a special smoking process, using local beech wood.
The Rügenwalder meat spread is processed on modern machines with the highest level of automation. And always with the best quality in mind – this is something that the current 90 employees in the two factories in Bad Arolsen and Staßfurt have adopted as their daily work philosophy.
Following the trend of bio products
High quality standards are at the heart of the company’s philosophy – from the selection of raw materials for the farmers breeding the pigs, the slaughtering, environmental-friendly production, up to the education of its employees. It was therefore only logical that the classic Rügenwalder Teewurst was launched as a bio product by the end of 2008. The meat comes from carefully selected bio farming companies, which are at maximum three hours away – this prevents the need for long transportation routes and diminishes the burden on the animals. Moreover, traceability of the products is guaranteed. The selected farmers only use first-rate bio food and have given up on pesticides.
Why not in a cup?
Apart from expending the product range with bio products, the company was also aiming to introduce a more up-to-date packaging concept. It lead to the idea of not only presenting the meat spread in its common gut packaging, but also in a re-closable cup tray. Talking to retailers, however, there was not much support for this idea. The responsible persons feared that Rügenwalder Teewurst in its new outfit would reduce sales.
Fortunately, this did not discourage Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch. These days, most of its meat spreads, as well as other products, are supplied in cups. What was regarded by retail as fuss in the end proved itself! From the moment it became clear that the modern packaging addressed new market segments, stimulating especially singles, youngsters and high-end consumers to buy traditional products again, the Rügenwalder Teewurst in a cup tray convinced its sceptics.
Due to the reservations at retailers it took quite some time to make the innovative idea of meat spread in a cup concrete. It was not until packaging expert SEALPAC was contacted that the idea was brought back to life. Rügenwalder Spezialitäten Plüntsch already knew SEALPAC as a specialist in fresh meat packaging and regarded them as a respected contact point to discuss the idea of the cup solution for meat spread. Amongst its requirements Plüntsch mentioned an optimal product distribution in the cup, prevention of discolouration on the product surface, as well as guaranteed and reproducible low residual oxygen levels in the cup. Easy opening, perfect reclose ability with a lid and an attractive packaging shape, supported by in-mould labelling, were also part of the company’s demands.
From vision to reality
Both companies worked closely together on suitable solutions. Going to a cup tray meant a big challenge for the workers in the factory. Especially the synchronization between the filling system and the SEALPAC traysealer proved to be critical, but a solution was found every time. In the middle of the year 2006 it was finally there; in the Staßfurt factory a new processing line was installed with the SEALPAC SP800 traysealer at its centrepiece. After fully automated denesting, the cup trays are transported on a special walking beam infeed conveyor to the filling station. After filling, the cup trays are sealed with a peel able film on the inside of the tray, using SEALPAC’s unique InsideCut sealing. This simplifies the subsequent process of fully automated lidding. During the process residual oxygen levels and filling weights are checked continuously. If an error is identified, the packaging line corrects itself or stops completely.
The new packaging, whose attractive design was based on the company logo, is a high quality and very strong spray-casted tray from PP with a snap-on lid for safe and easy re-closure. As modern bio customers still clearly value an appealing packaging design, in‑mould labelling was used instead of paper labels.
