Tube food: advances in tubes expand packaging potential for food.(Packaging)

Tubes: They're not just for toothpaste anymore. The potential for food in tubes is as broad as, well, the smiles shown in toothpaste ads. Food manufacturers are slowly understanding what health and beauty and other consumer goods manufacturers have known for some time: Tubes are a great packaging alternative. They come in a variety of materials, they can also sport myriad decorations, not to mention closures of all types and can even be shaped for self-promotion on store shelves, i.e., built in hangers or peg holes.

But what is it about food that turns off food manufacturers?

"In North America, the food industry has talked itself out of putting food in tubes," says Steve Remington, executive director of The Tube Council, Montclair, N.J. "We all have big refrigerators. The pride of our kitchen is the size of our refrigerator. In general, we can get the huge containers of ketchup and mustard and conventionally squeezed …