Innovations Between Hygiene and Flexibility

The meat-processing and sausage-making industry has taken up this challenge and is currently working successfully on concepts that satisfy the demand for smaller quantities at the same time as meeting the growing demand for convenience foods.

The ratio of self-service packages to unwrapped produce (about two thirds to one third in Germany) increases the speed of reaction in the sector. The wide variety of packaged meat and sausage products is reflected by the growing spectrum of different types of packaging, which means it is essential for the industry to increase its knowledge of packaging technology.

Legal hygiene requirements must be satisfied, as must the laws of the market, and these demands can only be met with the greatest possible production and packaging flexibility.

The latest packaging machines, which pack meat and sausage products safely and ensure no loss of quality, meet the hygiene requirements of the European ISO 14159 standard (and the German DIN EN 1672-2 standard). Thus, they can be cleaned efficiently to guarantee micro-biological safety.

This is particularly important for the trade because hygiene is the key to achieving the sell-by dates required – even though selling products as quickly as possible has top priority, modern logistics and distribution chains call for a longer sell-by date. Moreover, the packaging should not only ensure the perfect quality of meat and sausage products over a longer period of time but also offer greater convenience and, ideally, be easy to open and reseal.

The combination of machinery and packaging materials necessary for this has to be employed by companies of the meat-processing and sausage-making industry, which are, in turn, dependent for support on companies of the packaging industry.

The plastic films used for the dishes or covers of the most-used forms of packaging (deep-drawing, thermo-forming, vacuum or protective-gas packaging) are growing in importance as packaging materials and many manufacturers are currently working intensively on the problem of sealing / welding the packaging elements. There is a great potential in this field, which holds out the promise of both economic and qualitative improvements.

No Detail too Small for Sustainability

A variety of barrier films are available for this extremely important aspect of packaging. Already subject to many demands, packaging equipment will become even more complex because additional demands will emerge from the market in the wake of the sustainability discussion.

Thus, both film and machinery manufacturers are looking at the possibilities opened up by so-called bio-films based on either renewable raw materials and / or materials that can be composted after use.

Generally speaking, the objectives of sustainability are biodiversity maintenance, climate protection, preservation of cultural and agricultural space and the responsible use of natural resources.

Nevertheless, sustainable activities or economic interaction can only be measured against objective values to a limited extent. For an objective evaluation, account must be taken of numerous factors because uncompromising sustainability embraces more than just the ‘carbon footprint’ or a life-cycle assessment of a given product.

Expert discussions show that many subjects are seen from a variety of very different perspectives. Thus, given that this subject is a challenge for the meat-processing and sausage-making industry along the entire delivery chain, the packaging industry has also positioned itself as a development partner dedicated to finding new solutions.

The meat-processing and sausage-making industry places specific demands on the packaging used and expects solutions that not only take account of marketing needs but also result in optimum CO2 emissions during the production of the packaging. Other important demands concern suitability for use in machines, perfect product protection with minimum resource consumption, excellent recyclability and, last but not least, suitability for use over a large range of temperatures and long channels of distribution.

At IFFA, the international trade fair for the meat-processing industry in Frankfurt am Main from 8 to 13 May 2010, exhibitors will be presenting a cross section of relevant packaging technology, from packaging lines to important peripheral equipment for labelling, scales and marking technology.