Meat Packaging Showdown: Butcher Paper vs. Steak Paper

Meat lovers and food industry professionals face a crucial challenge with storing, transporting, and protecting prime cuts of meat. You may wonder how you can keep steaks fresh and tasting delicious or wrap your succulent cuts of pork to keep bacteria away.

The world of meat packaging provides the perfect options to ensure your meat retains its freshness and stays in optimal condition. Butcher paper and steak are paper game-changing packaging in the food industry that will make a significant difference to your delicious meat. Let’s explore what these meat packing papers offer and why you should invest in them.

What is Butcher Paper?

Butcher paper is a high-quality, thick, and durable paper that food industry professionals use to wrap and package meat. This type of paper has a protective quality that preserves your meat’s freshness and hygienically protects it from external elements.

To store cuts of many types of meat or transport them to other locations, your go-to meat packing paper should be butcher paper. When you use it to envelop your meat tightly, its features also mitigate contaminant exposure.

Which Specific Meat Types Should You Use Butcher Paper For?

There are a few specific scenarios in which you might want to use butcher paper. For instance, if you’re wrapping large cuts of meat, such as whole roasts or briskets, butcher paper is ideal. This food packaging paper offers the best protection for these large-sized meat cuts thanks to its many properties, which we will explore further down.

You may also use butcher paper to wrap meat before freezing it; it works as an excellent solution to eliminate freezer burn even when you keep it in the freezer.

What is Steak Paper?

Though similar to butcher paper, steak paper is a different type of meat packing paper. Food industry experts use this solution specifically to store steaks and wrap other food items for presentation purposes; it ensures the steak looks presentable and visually appetizing to customers.

This specialized paper preserves the freshness of steaks and ensures the meat’s quality remains excellent throughout the transportation and selling process.

What Can You Use Steak Paper For?

Using smaller steak paper portions is ideal for thin slices of meat. However, you can also use larger portions to wrap full chops or to display seafood options such as sushi. Alternatively, steak paper is one of the greatest choices to wrap around freshly-made sandwiches to showcase the mouthwatering ingredients in quality packaging.

Which Properties Make Butcher Paper Different from Steak Paper?

If you need to select between butcher and steak paper, it’s best to know the properties of each and how they are different. Here, we look closer at the two main properties that help you distinguish between these packaging types.

Different Thicknesses

You will notice that butcher paper is much thicker and less flexible than steak paper. Butcher paper features unbleached kraft paper, a strong, heavy-duty option that contains wood pulp. Steak paper features a thinner kraft paper and a coated surface.

Steak paper needs to flexibly envelop the steak and wrap this meat tightly and securely. However, you’ll find that butcher paper needs extra thickness to absorb excess moisture from different cuts of thicker, larger meat.

Unique Materials

While butcher paper has kraft pulp materials that combine with caustic soda and sizing agents, steak paper has a poly coating or wax surface. The butcher paper’s elements work to prevent leaking through the packaging; it’s an FDA-approved moisture-resistant material.

On the other hand, the wax surface and poly coating of steak paper offer a grease-resistant surface that you wrap around the steak. This material helps guarantee that your steak remains fresh even when transporting it over long distances.

What are the Advantages of Butcher and Steak Paper?

We have touched upon a few advantages of butcher and steak paper, but let’s now explore a couple of other key benefits of these types of packaging.

Advantages of Butcher Paper

Let’s begin with the main advantages of using butcher paper to wrap and store meat.

1. It’s versatile: Butcher paper is a versatile meat packing paper. No matter if you need to pack multiple cuts of the same meat or a large roast, you can use this packaging to wrap it securely.
2. It’s easy to handle: Despite its durability, the properties of butcher paper make it lightweight. You can easily handle this meat packaging paper and envelop your meat without any difficulties, so it is a convenient meat-wrapping solution.
3. It’s food-safe: This type of meat packing paper is food-safe; it’s free from materials that might damage the food and is safe to be in direct contact with your meat. Butcher paper goes through a rigorous manufacturing process that ensures it aligns with good-grade standards, meaning it doesn’t compromise the hygienic state of your meat.
4. It’s customizable: You can select butcher paper options that match the specific size of your meat cuts. Whether you have a whole turkey or deli meats, you can tailor the size of the paper to your meat for your business.

Advantages of Steak Paper

Now, let’s consider the main advantages of using steak paper to package and store steak cuts and present food.

1. It provides eco-friendly packaging advantages: Steak paper comprises sustainable materials. The paper matches environmentally conscious consumers who purchase meat from your shop and doesn’t harm the environment.
2. It’s breathable: You’ll notice that this packaging enables the meat to “breathe.” It will ensure your steaks do not accumulate large amounts of moisture and simultaneously guarantee they don’t develop unpleasant smells because of prolonged contact with the air.
3. It’s ideal for the optimum presentation: Steak paper looks professional and has exceptional quality. It’s the perfect way to wrap a prime steak you intend to sell to a customer.

Find the Butcher Paper and Steak Paper You Need at The Packaging Company

If you’re a butcher or work at a fine foods store and must wrap your meats, butcher paper and steak paper are the best solutions. Whether you need to know where to buy steak paper to wrap your steaks and keep them fresh or get the best butcher paper that is FDA-approved, The Packaging Company has you covered.

Choose us as your prime packaging supplier for your prime cuts of meat and keep it fresh, protected, and in excellent quality.