Survey of Distribution Practices for Prepackaged Frozen Meat

Excerpts from the report Summary: Many firms are attempting to devise new methods of marketing fresh red meat that will overcome some of the inefficiencies and limitations of conventional practices. Widespread trade interest has been shown in the possibility of accomplishing desired improvements by removing fresh meat fabrication (such as, cutting into wholesale or retail cuts, boning, cubing, and grinding) and packaging work from retail stores to central processing plants. Freezing is generally regarded as the most practical method currently available for centrally processing the meat and still preserving its fresh qualities. During the last 25 years, extensive industry experience has been acquired in freezing packaged fresh red meats for specialized purposes. This experience has shown that fresh meat can be processed at any desired location with no appreciable change in quality or texture of meats, providing proper packaging and handling methods are employed. This report gives a general description of processing methods, equipment, packaging materials, and marketing channels that were being employed by various firms engaged in central prepackaging and freezing of fresh red meat products at the time of the study. Information was obtained from interviews with industry members and from observation of representative types of meat packaging and freezing operations.