The hottest fresh meat packaging in China is sprea

Fresh meat packaging in China is spreading from the west to the East.

when we discuss packaging, food, beverage, medicine and cosmetics usually appear immediately in our minds. As for fresh meat, although people in large and medium-sized cities have increasingly chosen to buy it in supermarkets, there are still a large number of exposed and normal temperature transportation and sales methods in the wet market. According to the observation, even in most supermarkets, meat is only divided and refrigerated when it is put on the shelf

for thousands of years, Chinese people have been used to eating hot fresh meat that is slaughtered in the early morning and listed in the early morning, and they believe that fresh meat with meat temperature is the best. In fact, this kind of "hot meat" that Chinese people have eaten for thousands of years is very unsafe and unsanitary, and the meat is hard and tastes sour. Statistics show that China slaughters and processes about 10million beef cattle and 60million sheep every year, nearly half of which are carried out in small workshops and private workshops, so it is difficult to pay enough attention to the safety of meat products. Nowadays, people are facing the threat of mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth disease, bird flu and other diseases. It is urgent to reform the traditional slaughtering methods and improve the safety and health of meat products

through an interview with Mr. Lawrie Stewart, Asia Pacific Business Development Manager and fresh meat packaging expert of Cryovac food packaging Department of sealed air packaging (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., we learned that western developed countries began to study the safety and nutrition of meat as early as the beginning of the last century, and promoted the concept of "cold fresh meat", Today, there is no hot meat in the market of developed countries in our traditional concept. Except for a small amount of frozen meat, almost all of them are "cold fresh meat"

generally, meat needs to go through a cooling and acid removal process after slaughtering. After cooling at 10 ℃ for 24 hours, the pH value drops to the lowest, about 5.5. At this time, segmentation, vacuum shrink packaging and refrigeration can maximize the freshness and nutrition of meat, and extend the shelf life to more than 30 days. Packaging plays a key role in the safety, health and quality improvement of meat products

Cryovac packaging system under Hyatt has been applied to the packaging of chilled meat for more than 50 years, and Mr. Stevie has served in this department for more than 30 years. In 1987, Mr. Stilwell began to set foot in Asian countries, such as Japan, India and South Korea - this is the last blank territory of chilled meat for traditional reasons. In 2001, he came to China for the first time and began to live and work in Shanghai in January 2004

in recent years, China, with a good momentum of development of China's new material industry, has impressed Shi Dewei the most: from roads, houses and cars in cities to people's clothing, electrical appliances used, especially digital products, all are changing with each passing day. However, there are still some little changes, that is, the trading mode of vegetables, meat, poultry and fruits - most of these products are still carried out in open-air markets, which cannot guarantee hygiene and quality. Such products also need packaging

problems that vacuum shrink packaging can solve

Mr. Shi Dewei introduced that vacuum shrink packaging is the mainstream packaging form used in the Western fresh meat market at present. It can solve some main problems existing in the transportation and sales of fresh meat:

◆ it can maintain moisture and prevent the loss of moisture and dark color of fresh meat

◆ it can block oxygen and inhibit the reproduction of aerobic bacteria

◆ after vacuum packaging, it can be stored at low temperature (below 4 ℃), which can inhibit the propagation of anaerobic bacteria

◆ it can prevent the invasion and reproduction of external bacteria and ensure hygiene

◆ it can prevent fat from being oxidized to produce peculiar smell and fat color change (yellowing)

◆ vacuum packaging and low temperature refrigeration can improve the ripening process of meat and make the taste of meat more fresh and juicy

◆ it can block oxygen and maintain the natural color of fresh meat for a longer time (see the following figure for the color change process of myoglobin contained in meat when encountering oxygen)

the contraction of fresh meat is an important step after the smaller graduation package is measured by vacuum package. Contraction can eliminate capillary water absorption and reduce water seepage; It can make the package close and obviously improve the appearance of the product. At the same time, even if the package is inadvertently damaged, it can also reduce losses; It can increase the packaging strength, improve the barrier and puncture resistance, and improve the sealing strength

Mr. Shi Dewei believes that the three factors that affect the shelf life are: temperature, hygiene and packaging. Temperature control and health protection are inseparable from the support of oxygen barrier packaging according to the different contents of the experiment. The general structure of excellent barrier packaging materials is as follows:

this kind of high barrier shrink packaging film is processed by multi-layer coextrusion. It mainly has high oxygen and water vapor resistance, high hot water shrinkage and puncture resistance. It has strong grease resistance at the seal, which can avoid air leakage caused by seal pollution

packaging changes the business model of fresh meat

Stevie believes that the long shelf life provided by vacuum shrink packaging can greatly expand the sales space of meat processing plants, and powerful enterprises will be able to occupy the markets outside the medium and long distance, whether domestic or export. For retailers, since all boning, segmentation and packaging have been completed on the production line, they only need to open the bag, slice/segment and then put it on the shelf, which greatly reduces the sales cost and accelerates the turnover speed. Moreover, due to the use of quantitative packaging, sub location inventory, and on-demand procurement, there is no longer a shortage of meat in some parts of the previous sales of unpacked meat, while the meat in other parts has deteriorated due to unsalability. At the same time, each truck can carry 30% more meat packed in vacuum than the carcass

under the condition of cold storage and vacuum, meat will continue to ripen and tender due to the action of internal enzymes, and can maintain sufficient moisture, which can shorten the cooking time of meat without using additives such as tenderizing powder. Restaurants and hotels adopt this product, which can also save the loss of cutting and air drying of meat before cooking

under the condition of cold storage and vacuum, fresh meat will continue to ripen and become tender due to the action of its internal enzymes, with sufficient moisture, shorter processing time, and no additives. Restaurants using this product can also save the loss caused by cutting the air drying shrinkage part of meat products

meat moves towards brand management

as Shi Dewei said, everything in China is changing, and "food" will also integrate into the changing trend. Food safety has been emphasized for a long time. During the "two sessions" this year, many representatives proposed to legislate on food safety issues. From the repeatedly banned illegal slaughtering, water injected meat and other issues, we can see that meat safety is still a long way to go. Many things need to be changed, from traditional retail farming to industrialized farming, from decentralized slaughtering to fixed-point centralized slaughtering, although there have been some policy guidance, however, the packaging conditions in the process of transportation and sales have obviously not been paid enough attention

in recent years, we have noticed that in the meat market, some brands are forming energy-saving, water-saving, emission reduction and other resource and environmental benefits, such as grassland Xingfa, Fucheng, Jinluo, Yuansheng and Haoyue. Shuanghui even spared no expense to take the lead in advertising its "cold fresh meat" at CCTV prime time, and began to advocate the brand management of meat products. Using the existing advanced processing and production equipment, it introduced the foreign meat marketing mode of "cold chain production, cold chain transportation, cold chain sales, chain management" into China, established meat chain stores, and took the road of brand management. This shocked the people all over the country: after eating meat for so many years, they didn't realize that there was a brand of meat

branding and national chain operation inevitably also need packaging products suitable for medium and long-distance transportation. Shi Dewei predicted optimistically that with the improvement of Chinese living standards and the rise of meat industry giants, fresh meat products with vacuum shrink packaging will fly from export markets and high-end restaurants to the dining tables of ordinary people

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