This year CRYOVAC marks over eight decades of food packaging innovation, blending performance with circular economy responsibility.
Solving critical challenges
The 1941 filing of the CRYOVAC brand trademark heralded a completely new way of packaging meat. Vacuum-sealing food was almost unheard of at the time. What began as a groundbreaking cryogenic vacuum process—removing oxygen to significantly extend shelf life—has evolved into a global standard enabling food to be transported over greater distances while safeguarding quality. Since then, CRYOVAC has been at the forefront of food packaging technology and today the brand continues to revolutionize how the world preserves, protects, and distributes perishable food.
Industry knowledge and collaboration
Over the decades, CRYOVAC® has evolved beyond packaging materials into complete packaging system solutions. By combining high-performance materials with proprietary, world-class equipment, the brand offers a comprehensive portfolio designed for every customer need—ranging from shrink bags and vacuum skin to flowrap, tray lidding, and vertical pouches. This includes widely recognized systems such as Darfresh® vacuum-skin process and more recent innovations like the AutoWrap Lite, a proprietary soft vacuum system combining ultra-thin, recycle-ready films with vacuum sealing, and VPP MonoPro, advanced recycle-ready pouches specifically designed for fluid and pumpable food.
All these innovations are made possible by teams of experts working closely with customers and key industry organisations, including Flexible Packaging Europe, the Advanced Packaging Association, the European Dairy Association, and AVEC, to truly understand the problems facing the food value chain.
Shaping a Sustainable, Future-Ready Industry
As Europe rapidly transitions to a circular economy, food producers face shifting regulatory landscapes, such as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and new plastic taxes. CRYOVAC is actively evolving to stay ahead of these changes under its core positioning platform: Where Performance Meets Responsibility.
The brand operates on the belief that food packaging should never force a choice between product protection and environmental stewardship.
Performance means delivering the food safety, shelf-life extension, and operational efficiency that producers rely on.
Responsibility means designing packaging solutions that use resources efficiently, prioritize recyclability, and actively reduce both packaging and food waste.
Neil Dunn, Vice President of the EMEA Food Division at Sealed Air, said ”solving critical food industry challenges and creating new possibilities for efficiencies, resourcefulness and sustainability have defined the CRYOVAC® brand legacy for more than eight decades. And it is something we continue to build on to shape innovation throughout the range.”
By combining advanced material science, automation expertise, and deep industry collaboration, CRYOVAC® is paving the way for the next 85 years of solving the food industry's most critical challenges.