More than ever, there is a pressing need in the retail meat case for product differentiation. Store brands are gaining importance and status, so stores must explore every means within reason to set themselves apart from the national brands. For store brands, form-fill-seal packaging provides, as one industry executive puts it, “… the visual flexibility as a platform to optimize the case space they occupy and compete for shoppers’ attentions.” Packaging options within form-fill-seal abound. Processors can offer up thin gauge or heavier for semi-rigid modified-atmosphere or vacuum-skin packaging, to name just a few. There’s just a larger array of formats than for bags.
One form-fill-seal format that is seeing growth is high barrier flex/flex, in which there are flexible bottom and top webs. With ground beef, this vacuum package has shown it can deliver 28 to 32 days of retail shelf life, according to a source familiar with the application. He points out that even greater freshness life is doable, but anything beyond about 28 days passes a point of diminished return for customers who are likely to ask what’s being added to meat to get this kind of duration.