Why Vacuum Pack? The Simple Yet Powerful Reasons For Vacuum Packaging Technology

In this article we tell you not only why someone would vacuum pack but many of the advantages of doing just that.

Firstly, we'd better define what vacuum packing is! It is all too easy especially with terms which are pretty nearly everyday terms, to assume that everyone knows what one is talking about. So to ensure we're all on the same page: in vacuum packing, clear plastic film is first heated then cooled around food or another item, excluding some or in instances nearly all, the air as it cools.

Retailing

So we've answered the question: 'what is it?' Now, what's it good for? One meets vacuum packing extensively, but not exclusively in food retailing: at the greengrocers or the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket. Items so packed are less liable to bruising.

Shelf life is prolonged in other ways too. As with bacon where the exclusion of atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen maintains freshness. Similarly in the case of cheese where air getting at the product would dry it out faster and make it mouldy. Vacuum packaging is reckoned generally to prolong shelf-life by 3 to 5 times.

Hotel and catering

Vacuum packing is met with extensively in the hotel and catering industry also, where the food is prepared and given a clear-film over-wrap until time for its consumption. For these purposes a vacuum packing machine may be used. In the home, where the food keeps longer with make-shift 'vacuum packing' than with just refrigeration, we meet with a similar procedure. But it's not just a matter of air-exclusion, there's also an improvement in hygiene at the same time.

Climate change

Importantly, all the above actions reduce food waste. The millions and millions of tons of food dumped every year, on rotting, release large quantities of methane and carbon dioxide. This contributes to global warming, so the humble vacuum packing machine plays it's role in reducing this modern day phenomenon - with it's consequences for climate change.