One of the most commercially significant produce projects I contributed to at BioPak was the development of bespoke fibre tomato punnets for Costa Group, one of Australia's largest fresh produce growers and distributors.
At first glance, a tomato punnet appears simple. In reality, it is a high-performance packaging format. It must protect delicate produce, withstand stacking and cold-chain transport, integrate into automated packing lines, and maintain retail presentation — all at high volumes. The additional challenge? It needed to be heat-sealable and certified home compostable — without added PFAS.
Traditional fibre packaging often relies on grease-resistant additives, many of which historically contained PFAS chemistry. Similar to the Kapiris Bros produce project, we re-evaluated the functional requirements. Tomatoes do not produce grease — that allowed us to eliminate grease-repellent additives entirely and engineer a solution using only water resistance.
The punnet had to integrate with existing heat-sealing machinery used in high-speed produce packing facilities. That meant designing a fibre rim profile that could achieve consistent seal integrity with compostable lidding films — without warping, fibre lift, or seal failure. My role focused on structural refinement and manufacturability: iterating wall thickness, rim geometry, and fibre density to ensure sufficient rigidity, seal compatibility, moisture resistance, and compostability compliance.
Working closely with manufacturing partners, we tested and refined prototypes until the tray performed reliably in real packing environments. The result was a fibre-based punnet that could replace conventional plastic formats without disrupting existing operational systems.
What makes this project particularly impactful is that it balanced sustainability ambition with industrial reality. It did not ask Costa Group to overhaul infrastructure. Instead, it delivered a drop-in alternative that met commercial and environmental objectives simultaneously. Real innovation succeeds when it integrates seamlessly into existing systems.