- Food & Beverages
Frizle – New approach to an old favorite
When two food lovers got together with a packaging designer, a converter and cartonboard from BillerudKorsnäs, the result was a clever new way of preparing a German delicacy.
The new packaging product needed tobe able to keep the raw dough fresh for several weeks.
Made from eggs, flour, water and salt, Spätzle is a type of noodle native to Southern Germany. This traditional hand-made delicacy is bought pre-shaped at the supermarket in both fresh and dried forms. To maintain its quality, superior taste and to differentiate from pre-cooked varieties of spätzle, a disposable packaging has been developed for the raw dough that can be squeezed directly into boiling water ahead of serving.
The idea is the brainchild of a company called Frizle founded by Martin Sluk and Thomas Spieler. “We both love spätzle and pre-cooked products have never been an option.”
The pair found Thomas Reissig at VerDeSoft, a packaging design and engineering company based in Nuremberg. Reissig immediately identified several challenges. “The new packaging product needed to be able to keep the raw dough fresh for several weeks,” Reissig says. “It also needed to be convenient for the consumer – easy to open and easy to squeeze. And finally it needed to communicate ‘organic product’.”
The final design was a foldable cartonboard pouch with a curved bottom featuring six holes sealed with a label. The inside of the pouch was coated with a special film, thus creating a closed and safe environment for the dough. Ultrasonic technology was used to seal the packaging. After testing several types of cartonboard, it was obvious that BillerudKorsnäs Light 250 gsm was the perfect choice of material. The cartonboard’s long fibres provide high stability and can withstand a high degree of humidity.
Michael Spiegel at Spiegel Verpackungen in Höchberg, Germany, was the converter for the product. “BillerudKorsnäs Light is unique,” he says. “Other materials with the same thickness are not as strong. And those that are as strong lack the flexibility needed. There are often difficulties when you merge two different materials, such as the cartonboard and film in this case,” he says. “We also needed to develop a special tool to be able to check that all the holes were properly cut.”'
Success before the official launch
Frizle’s disposable spätzle squeezer was a success even before it was officially launched in June 2014.
In 2012, the first prototype was introduced and instantly won the German Packaging Award. In 2013, it was presented at the world’s biggest organic trade show, Biofach in Nuremberg, and was rewarded with the audience award in the category Best New Product Convenience.
This success was repeated at Biofach in 2014 with the audience choosing Frizle’s chilli flavoured spätzle as Best New Product. The product packaging recently won a Gold award at the DuPont Design Innovation awards in Delaware, USA