Systems and Equipment for Packaging and Price Marking Meat and Poultry in Retail Food Stores

Excerpts from the report: Efficient methods of hand wrapping retail cuts of fresh meat and poultry, developed in U.S. Department of Agriculture research, have increased productivity in the backrooms of retail food stores. In the 1950's, automatic and semiautomatic packaging machines appeared on the market. During the early 1960's some stores began to use automatic weighing and pricing equipment in conjunction with packaging machines. Completely or partly automatic systems of wrapping, weighing, and pricing were developed. Some types of meat packages cannot be machine wrapped, so some hand wrapping must still be done when machines are used. This study was made to evaluate use of automatic and semiautomatic packaging machines, as compared with efficient hand wrapping methods, and to assist the retail trade in determining when it is economically feasible to install a machine wrapping operation in a retail store meat department. Layouts were developed for meat backrooms for efficient use of wrapping machines in conjunction with automatic weighing, pricing, and labeling equipment.