RUBBER MEAT BAGS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 July 1939, Page 3

RUBBER MEAT BAGS

PRESERVATION OF WEIGHT.

AN INTERESTING INNOVATION.

A method of preserving the weight and fresh condition of frozen meat during transport has recently been successfully experimented with, says an overseas exchange. The wrappers or bags, it says, which are manufactured from an odourless, non-adhesive. transparent rubber composition, have already been in commercial use for some months for chickens and other poultry products which the wrappers hold in a vacuum, thus ensuring safety from mould attack and freedom from the absorption of. odours from other produce.

It is estimated that the new wrapping is responsible for avoiding 3.5 to 4.5 per cent, of the normal loss of weight during transit and subsequent cold storage, and it is contended that this saving alone defrays the cost of the wrapping.

The bag, which is much smaller than the article it is to contain, is first stretched with its mouth or neck across the end of a drum, in the case of poultry. The evacuation of the air inside the drum by an air pump causes the bag to stretch and form an inner lining tor the drum. Into this the carcase of the bird, or other produce, is placed and the vacuum released, causing the rubber bag to close tightly over its contents.

Complete evacuation of the air inside the bag is secured by exhausting the air through a pump attached to the neck of the bag. which is then closed by twisting and the application of a metal fastener.

Experiments are now being conducted in the use of this material as wrappers for beef, mutton and lamb, but in the case of these, it is said not to be essential to create a vacuum inside the bags.