The company announced today (June 29) that its first fresh pork shipment from Ringsted, Denmark, to Melbourne, Australia wrapped in the breakthrough packaging had arrived.
Using BluWrap’s patented oxygen management techniques to create and maintain an all-natural controlled atmosphere environment, the pork was in transit 56 days.
“The pork shipped using the BluWrap packaging technology looked identical on the day of opening as it was the day we packed it, despite being 56 days in transit without any ice or freezing,” said Tom Petersen, senior manager of quality production, Danish Crown who attended the opening in Australia.
“Our Australian customer was extremely pleased with the colour, texture and yields on the product throughout the entire process. This truly looks like a technology that will gain traction in the pork industry.”
Research and development
The ocean shipment builds on BluWrap’s continued research and development with pork. It follows earlier land tests in Chile and the Netherlands. The technology is already used to ship seafood worldwide.
“This first pork shipment opens significant new market opportunities for BluWrap,” said BluWrap CEO Mark Barnekow. “Until now, our efforts have been focused on shipping seafood using ocean containers so that producers and suppliers can use a more environmentally-friendly way to bring their product to market. With this successful shipment, we expect to thoughtfully extend our technology to include pork and look forward to working with other high volume proteins like chicken, beef, and lamb.”
BluWrap began working with pork after customers in China and Japan requested shipments of fresh pork from their foreign suppliers to satisfy local markets and preferences for fresh product rather than frozen.
BluWrap also expects its technology to reduce drip loss and increase yields usually associated with traditional vacuum packed chilled shipments of product, equating to more profits for processors. In addition, the business expects pork transported using its technology to deliver savings on packaging materials and reduce environmental impact.