A single-piece container that functions as both serving tray and to-go lid has earned Anchor Packaging, a Georgia-Pacific company, the Convenience Store News Best New Product Award in the Foodservice Packaging category — recognition the company will leverage at the 2026 NACS Show, October 7–9 in Las Vegas (Booth C55059, Central Hall).
The Invertibles™ design upends the conventional two-piece container system: one unit works as a standalone dine-in tray; nest two together and they form a secure, lidded carryout container. The approach directly addresses a persistent back-of-house pain point — mismatched base-and-lid inventories that generate waste and consume valuable dry-storage real estate.
The Operational Case
For c-store and foodservice operators running high-velocity grab-and-go programs, inventory rationalization is a recurring pressure point. Every SKU eliminated from a prep-and-storage environment reduces ordering complexity, shrinks safety-stock requirements, and frees shelf space that is chronically scarce in non-traditional foodservice venues like convenience stores, commissary kitchens, and ghost-kitchen buildouts. Invertibles™ targets all three friction points simultaneously by collapsing a two-SKU system to one.
Integrated stacking rails add structural stability when units are combined into carryout mode — a detail that matters for operators whose staff are assembling orders at speed. The design also supports flexible deployment across dine-in and carryout dayparts without requiring separate par stocks for each service format.
"Innovation starts with understanding our customers' biggest challenges and finding simpler, smarter ways to solve them," said Pranay Harsh, vice president and general manager at Anchor Packaging. "By transforming two components into one versatile solution, we're helping operators simplify inventory management, reduce waste, improve efficiency and better serve their customers."
Industry Timing
The launch arrives as convenience-store foodservice continues its expansion into full meal occasions, a trend that has pushed c-store operators to invest in dedicated kitchen equipment, hot-hold merchandisers, and more sophisticated ware-handling workflows. Packaging that reduces the operational overhead of a growing menu lineup fits squarely into that buildout calculus. Brook Brown, vice president of Innovation at Anchor Packaging, framed the value proposition in supply-chain terms: "Higher-performing packaging can unlock meaningful value across the entire operation."
Georgia-Pacific Foodservice Solutions — which also includes the Dixie and Panoramic brands — will display the full Anchor Packaging portfolio at NACS, where buyers can evaluate the Invertibles™ system alongside the company's broader range of food-protection and sustainability-oriented packaging options.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
