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Correctional facility bars wasted food, materials

A specially developed film applied to reusable trays on a heat-shrink machine helps the Milwaukee County House of Correction provide inmates with a tamper-evident package that reduces wasted food and packaging materials.

The Milwaukee County House of Correction produces meals in reusable trays like these in an unusual wrap and shrink process. The
The Milwaukee County House of Correction produces meals in reusable trays like these in an unusual wrap and shrink process. The

Before the year 2000, the Milwaukee County House of Correction served inmates meals in reusable polycarbonate trays topped with heat-sealable lidding. Trouble was, after the lidded trays were heated in conventional ovens to warm the food, and the film was peeled away, bits of film clinging to the tray flanges were extremely difficult to clean off, even after multiple trips through dishwashing machinery.

Occasionally, some residual material remained on the tray lip. When that tray was used again for another meal, the residue created slight gaps where the subsequent film lidding could not seal to the tray. To inmates, it looked like the food in the tray had been tampered with, so they exercised their right to reject the meal. That caused wasted food, packaging materials and manpower. A change was in order.

The situation was addressed with the addition of a heat-shrink machine designed to work with reusable rigid trays in institutional packaging environments like correctional facilities, schools and nursing homes. The CF-LD-30 machine comes from Orics Industries (College Point, NY). It heat-shrinks a specially developed film, without a sealant layer or coating, onto the tray top and under its flange to create a tight, tamper-evident fit. Called Mylar® 50XMLD, the ½-mil monolayer polyester film was developed by DuPont Teijin Films (Wilmington, DE). Because the film has no sealant, it leaves no residual material on the polycarbonate tray. The film adheres to the tray after the Orics machine crimps it under the flanges and after the pack passes through a shrink tunnel. The transparent, amber-tinted reusable trays are supplied by Design Specialties (Wallingford, CT).

Withstanding ‘cook-chill’

The MCHOC employs the heat-shrink machine at its Franklin, WI, central production kitchen. The kitchen prepares meals that are served at five facilities in southeast Wisconsin. At Franklin, the food is cooked, then manually portioned into trays, lidded and kept in a refrigerated vessel that cools the food, holding it between 28°F and 32°F. The use of this “cook-chill” process, says Karen Russell, “is growing in corrections [facilities].” She defines the process as “a method of food production, a pasteurization process where, depending on the acidity and sugar level of the product, refrigerated items can be kept anywhere from a week to 45 days.”

Russell served as foodservice manager for the Franklin facility when it went to the cook-chill process. She was one of the key MCHOC employees involved in selecting the tray sealer and film now used by the facility. Last fall, she left MCHOC. She is presently the senior foodservice manager for a contract foodservice company based in Phoenix. MCHOC representatives declined to comment on the equipment or material. Russell did.

“The seals were getting worse and worse, to the point where we’d put the trays in an oven and [the lidding film] would blow off,” she recalls. The trayed food may be reheated in a variety of convection ovens and in a microwave. However, in an application such as this, institutional ovens that accommodate large volumes are typically used. If the film blew off, “the food would dry out,” she says. “There was a lot of waste. And inmates believed their food may have been tampered with. Food is one of those ‘security issues’ in a correctional environment. You want inmates to be [satisfied] with what they’re getting.”

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