This pandemic has resulted in me cooking at home even more than before, and after a while I get pretty frustrated by all the saran wrap, plastic trays and styrofoam trays that I had to deal with.
Why won’t supermarkets here package their products with butcher paper or freezer paper?
I know stores here lack butcher counter or seafood counter with actual people behind it, so the meat or fish has to be prepackaged. So the saran wrap is there to let the customer see what they are actually getting. But they could make a freezer paper with a transparent plastic stripe or something…
Sometimes those little trays are holding about a quarter of their capacity.
PX Mart import beef from Australia which comes in a sufficiently strong plastic wrap, no tray, just clear plastic wrapping. PX Mart, presumably on arrival in the store/or distribution point, then take that wrapped meat and put it on a polystyrene tray and wrap that a second time for sale in store. Mind boggling waste.
Most large supermarkets such as RT Mart, Carrefour have butchers, they’ll prepare cuts of meat specially if you ask, chop up your whole chicken, pork ribs etc.
No supermarkets in North America use butcher paper, they all do the styro tray/absorbent pad/plastic wrap regimen like the supermarkets do here.
The butcher paper is more expensive, and it doesn’t work with any kind of automated packaging.
So it’s much more of a boojie boutique presentation item when you buck up the extra at a legit OG butcher shop.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve been back, but when did they make the switch? At least 10 years ago all the supermarkets I went to in California and Canada still used butcher paper.
I’ve been to quite a few groceries in N America that use butcher paper - there are usually still some products in styrofoam trays, but I remember seeing butcher paper used quite often.
It gets at me too, especially the fruit packaged in styrofoam trays and wrapped in plastic. It’s wasteful and also prevents me from inspecting the quality of the fruit.
I think it depends on what you are buying. If you are buying prepacked meat and fish that has the price tag on it…they will be in foam trays.
If you go up to the butcher area with all the meat on display to pick and choose and get the right cut and have them slice it (or not) to you liking…it is 100% in butcher paper.
A little suggestion here for those of you experiencing middle class guilt in buying all the tiny little meat trays. At Wellcome and Carrefour they have an alternative brand of chicken breast/thigh/tenderloins in clear plastic packets without polystyrene trays. They are typically up and out of the way a bit. Hope this helps someone save another polystyrene tray going into the incinerator.