Food Packaging Machines
Good packaging is essential for ensuring the shelf life of your food is as long as possible. Packaging machines may not feel like an essential for your hotel and catering business, but they can offer huge benefits when it comes to keeping food fresh for up to five times longer.
Good packaging is essential for ensuring the shelf life of your food is as long as possible. Packaging machines may not feel like an essential for your hotel and catering business, but they can offer huge benefits when it comes to keeping food fresh for up to five times longer.
Why do you need to package food properly?
It’s easy enough to simply put leftover food or other ingredients into a plastic bag and store them in the fridge or freezer. But if you already put a lot of time and energy into making sure your dishes taste fresh, why not extend that with good packaging solutions. Packing your products in the right way quickly prevents them from drying out and preserves not just the flavour, but also the nutritional value.
In addition, using a packaging machine also ensures more tidiness and structure in your fridge and freezer. It makes it easy to store the exact portions so that you can see precisely how much you have frozen. Packing neatly also saves space in your fridge. Leaving everything in cardboard packaging is not always ideal as it does not seal well, it is often half full and the cardboard absorbs moisture. This can affect the longevity of the product. A packing machine ensures that you are working a lot more efficiently and fully utilising your storage space.
What professional packaging machines are there?
Considering how import packing food properly is, Maxima Kitchen Equipment has multiple packing machines in different types and sizes to suit your kitchen’s needs. Foodstuffs come in liquid or solid form, and the size and quantities will determine what type of packaging machine is best for you. Maxima offers a range of tray sealers (also known as topsealers), vacuum pack machines and vacuum sealers. The differences are explained below:
What is a tray sealer?
A tray sealer (or topsealer) is a tabletop packaging machine that can be used to pack preformed trays and containers so they are leak free. Tray sealers are ideal for catering companies, delivery services, hotels and restaurants, butcher shops and supermarkets. Thanks to the airtight packaging, meals for delivery arrive at their destination without spillage. Prepared meals stay fresh in the refrigerator and the shelves in the shop look neat and tidy.
What is a vacuum pack machine?
A vacuum pack machine is used to pack food in an airtight manner. The packaging is then firmly sealed.
What is a vacuum sealer?
A vacuum sealer is a tabletop vacuum machine that doesn’t have a vacuum chamber. You use it to seal food airtight by using sealer rolls or vacuum bags that you place on the sealing bar. The package is vacuumed and then sealed.
What are the advantages of vacuum packing?
The biggest advantage is that you can keep food up to five times longer. Throwing away food is a waste, as is buying new stock that’s not needed. Packing also takes very little time: the vacuum time, sealing time and temperature are not only quick, but also entirely adjustable so you are fully in charge of the process.
Vacuuming also prevents freezer burn. Freezer burn can be recognised by 'snow flakes' of ice on the product and the dried out spots on frozen meat. Bread and vegetables are also prone to it if not packed correctly. Freezer burn occurs when air can get to the frozen food. By vacuuming packing your products before freezing items like bread, meat, ice cream and vegetables stay fresh and also look more appealing.
When you vacuum pack your food, you create smaller, more compact packages. This saves space in your fridge or freezer, because you can store vacuumed bags neatly. Thanks to the transparency of the vacuum bags, you can also always see what you have frozen.
Vacuum packing food has many advantages:
- Prevents freezer burn during freezing
- Sous vide cooking starts with vacuum packing
- Food stays fresh for much longer: bacteria don't stand a chance
- Preservation of taste and smell: it prevents dehydration and the mixing of odours
- More efficient in the kitchen: it’s easier to pack in portions so you throw away less
- Saves space: easy to label and saves space compared to separate packs and boxes
Which foods benefit from a vacuum machine?
You can store many kinds of food in a vacuum. This doesn't only have to be food that you keep in the freezer, but also many products that you would store in the fridge or pantry. With vegetables, the advice is to blanch them first so they keep well. The following food items, among others, are suitable for vacuum packing:
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Meat and fish
- Hard cheeses
- Bread and pasta
- Liquids: soups, sauces and oils
- Flour, sugar and other dry ingredients
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