Abstract

A series of three experiments were conducted to develop a retail packaging system suitable for use in centralized meat processing and packaging operations using modified atmosphere master packaging (MAP) of display‐ready beef and pork cuts. It was shown that oxygen (O2) scavengers were needed inside retail trays, lidded or over‐wrapped trays could be used with equal success but inclusion of a grid inside the retail tray was not required. It was established that a minimum of eight O2 scavengers with an O2 absorption rate high enough to achieve an O2 half‐life of 0.6–0.7 h in the pack atmosphere were needed where the O2 concentration could otherwise remain ≤500 ppm at any time during storage. Composite results from these experiments clearly showed that the best performance resulted from use of hard plastic retail trays containing eight O2 scavengers, with high O2 absorption rate, when placed underneath an absorbent pad and over‐wrapped with an O2 permeable film. Small holes in two corners of the O2 permeable film to permit free exchange of atmospheres within the retail packages facilitated O2 reduction during MAP storage.

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