We purchase many packaged products today, and packaging comes in multiple forms. The development of plastics changed the way we interface with many products, especially meat.
Packaging systems fuel revolutions
Innovations in packaging drove two major revolutions in the meat industry — at packing and at retail. The transformations of these industries may not have occurred without the role played by meat and poultry packaging.
For the packing industry, the “Boxed Beef Revolution” fundamentally changed how and where beef was processed. From the mid-1800s until the 1960s, cattle, lamb and swine were harvested and processed in large facilities in major cities such as Chicago, New York, and Kansas City. Livestock was shipped to these cities, and products, especially those that were fresh, were distributed locally and regionally. Companies such as Swift and Armour were giants during this time.
In the 1960s, a start-up company named Iowa Beef Processors had a different business plan, one where the plant would harvest only beef, would be located close to the source of cattle, and would use vacuum packaging technology to place beef in boxes to be shipped to their customers nationwide. Once beef was vacuum packaged, it had a longer shelf life, which allowed for widespread distribution of products. Iowa Beef Processors became IBP (now Tyson Fresh Meats), and they led the way along with eventual competitors Monfort of Colorado (now JBS) and Missouri Beef Packers (now Cargill Meat Solutions) to supplant the giants in meat packing. A similar pattern was followed in the pork industry.
For the retail industry, case-ready packaging, where meat products are cut and packaged centrally and then shipped to retail, took a slower path to prominence. Having full-scale butcher shops in retail stores was the foundation of which supermarket chains built their businesses. The first wave of case-ready packaging was used for poultry where the convenience of receiving packaged products that display ready met minimal resistance by butchers. Case-ready pork and beef has taken longer with many retailers because of the investment of processing backrooms with expensive equipment, walk-in refrigerators for storage, and, most importantly, highly skilled meat cutters whose wages depended on the time spent cutting, trimming, wrapping, and stocking the meat cases along with attending to customers at the full-service case. Some of the initial attempts of case-ready pork and beef in the late 20th Century was met with resistance, not because of issues with the packaging technology, but because of the business models used by many companies where labor and overhead costs remained high. For case-ready to succeed, it required a new model where the investment in the in-store processing and highly skilled meat cutters were not needed.
The breakthrough came when Walmart expanded its general merchandise offerings to include food. At this point, stores could be redesigned or newly built to accommodate case-ready beef, pork, poultry, and other meat products where all that was required was backroom refrigerated storage and employees who performed similar duties as those who stocked packaged foods and other merchandise. The expansion into food along with aggressive expansion throughout the United States (and other countries, as well), resulted in Walmart being the number one ranked food retailer/grocer in the United States in 2023.
Wholesale packaging systems
Vacuum packaging systems rely on two factors, a plastic package that provides a barrier to oxygen and a machine to evacuate the atmospheric air from the package and seal it. More sophisticated materials and equipment have been developed over time, but the fundamental process remains the same.
IBP began the Cattle-Pak seven-box style boxed beef where carcasses were cut into primals so that two boxes of rounds, two boxes of loins, two boxes of chucks, and one box of ribs were sold as a unit. Over time, the shifting from primals to subprimals led to boxes containing vacuum packaged ribeyes, strip loins, inside rounds, chuck rolls, etc., allowing customers to focus on cuts more suited to their needs.
Cryovac-branded systems (bags and equipment) have been a pioneer in this area and still represent a great proportion of the marketplace. For many vacuum-packaged fresh meats, shrink bags go through a hot water “shrink tunnel” where the heat causes the bags to shrink and conform to the surface of the meat. For many of the processed products, non-heat shrink bags are used and the package maintains its original dimensions after vacuuming and sealing.
Vacuum packaging bone-in cuts presented challenges with bone punctures resulting in a loss of vacuum and “leakers.” Initially, wax-impregnated cheesecloth was used to cover bones to reduce the chances of bag punctures. Today it is common to see vacuum bags with linings of thick layers of additional plastic designed to prevent bone punctures and the color of these often mimic the original yellow color of this special cheesecloth.
Advances in overwrapped trays include rigid plastic trays that can be recycled.
| Source: ©EASYASOFFICIAL - STOCK.ADOBE.COMRetail and foodservice packaging systems
Traditional retail packaging used plastic foam trays overwrapped with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) film. This film was oxygen permeable, allowing the meat to stay in the bloomed (oxygenated) state. Advances here include the addition of rigid plastic trays that offer recycling options compared to foam.
Roll stock vacuum packaging systems are widely used for retail and foodservice. One version of roll stock heats the bottom film to produce a pocket where meat is placed in the cavity and the top film is sealed to it after a vacuum is drawn. Vacuum skin packaging (VSP) is the opposite where the meat is placed on the flat bottom layer and the top film is heated and drawn over the meat before vacuuming and sealing.
Europe led the way in using modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) where meat is placed in oversized bottom trays, atmospheric air is removed, and combinations of oxygen (75% to 80%, to maintain color) and carbon dioxide (20% to 25%, to inhibit bacterial growth) are backflushed before a top layer is applied to seal the package. The headspace required for the modified atmosphere results in packages being larger than the meat inside.
Vacuum skin packaging is widely used for retail and foodservice.
| Source: ©JULIAN PETERS PHOTOS - STOCK.ADOBE.COMThe most common system for retail case-ready is the master-packaged PVC-overwrapped. This system is where retail cuts are packaged in PVC-overwrapped on plastic foam or rigid plastic trays. The packaged cuts are placed in a master bag, the air is evacuated, and the bag is backflushed with a combination of three gases: 60% nitrogen (a filler gas); 39.6% carbon dioxide (inhibits bacterial growth), and 0.4% carbon monoxide (maintains color). The retailer opens the master package and places cuts in the meat cases where they appear much like traditional cuts prepared in the backroom.
Additional thoughts
We see more specialty products such as lamb, veal, bison, organic, and grassfed marketed using case-ready packaging technologies to capitalize on these low volume, high margin cuts. Case-ready packaging of ground beef offers consumers a vast array of different blends, lean-to-fat ratios, and product sizes. Retailers can offer multiple products without having to worry that they may be in the case for longer times.
The meat industry of today looks different from the past, and we must thank those who decided that the future was plastics.
