MEAT+POULTRY - November 2024 - 74

MEAT PERSPECTIVES
Advances in overwrapped
trays include rigid plastic
trays that can be recycled.
In the 1960s, a start-up company named
Iowa Beef Processors had a different business
plan, one where the plant would harvest only
beef, would be located close to the source
of cattle, and would use vacuum packaging
technology to place beef in boxes to be shipped
to their customers nationwide. Once beef was
vacuum packaged, it had a longer shelf life,
which allowed for widespread distribution
of products. Iowa Beef Processors became
IBP (now Tyson Fresh Meats), and they led
the way along with eventual competitors
Monfort of Colorado (now JBS) and Missouri
Beef Packers (now Cargill Meat Solutions) to
supplant the giants in meat packing. A similar
pattern was followed in the pork industry.
For the retail industry, case-ready
packaging, where meat products are cut and
packaged centrally and then shipped to retail,
took a slower path to prominence. Having
full-scale butcher shops in retail stores was the
foundation of which supermarket chains built
their businesses. The first wave of case-ready
packaging was used for poultry where the
convenience of receiving packaged products
that display ready met minimal resistance
by butchers. Case-ready pork and beef has
taken longer with many retailers because of
the investment of processing backrooms with
expensive equipment, walk-in refrigerators for
storage, and, most importantly, highly skilled
meat cutters whose wages depended on the
time spent cutting, trimming, wrapping, and
stocking the meat cases along with attending to
customers at the full-service case. Some of the
initial attempts of case-ready pork and beef in
the late 20th Century was met with resistance,
not because of issues with the packaging
technology, but because of the business models
used by many companies where labor and
overhead costs remained high. For case-ready
to succeed, it required a new model where
the investment in the in-store processing and
highly skilled meat cutters were not needed.
The breakthrough came when Walmart
expanded its general merchandise offerings
to include food. At this point, stores could be
redesigned or newly built to accommodate
case-ready beef, pork, poultry, and other
meat products where all that was required
was backroom refrigerated storage and
employees who performed similar duties as
those who stocked packaged foods and other
merchandise. The expansion into food along
with aggressive expansion throughout the
United States (and other countries, as well),
resulted in Walmart being the number one
ranked food retailer/grocer in the United States
in 2023.
WHOLESALE PACKAGING SYSTEMS
Vacuum packaging systems rely on two factors,
a plastic package that provides a barrier
to oxygen and a machine to evacuate the
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MEAT+POULTRY - November 2024

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