www.sausagemaking.org

I'm moving away from vacuum sealing for a variety of reasons and was curious to know what you guys would recommend for packaging bulk orders. I just had a customer order 20 lbs of links. I was thinking a bunch of butcher-paper wrapped packs would be difficult for that quantity of sausages. Thoughts?

Check out bags in roll form. You can then seal the bottom, fill, cut and seal to any length. You can then adjust the length to anything you want, based on weight or count. Also you can fill, seal the top, then place a label in the tube and seal again with the label protected by the plastic, then cut. Sealing also gives some indication of an opened package if for some reason you need to check that. We do everything from frozen pizza's to bulk bread rolls in bags like this, keeps stocking unique bag sizes to a bare minimum.

Rod, are you referring to chamber or vacuum sealer bags rolls? If so I have a chamber sealer and larger bags but for some reason I just didn't feel like it was the right application.

I ended up getting some of these disposable aluminum pans with lids. The 17 lbs of sausage fit nicely in three half-hotel pans and they had nice crimp-down matching lids: http://www.webstaurantstore.com/choice-1-2-size-foil-steam-table-pan-2-9-16-deep-100-case/612613245.html

Not vacuum chamber type but a simple bar sealer, below is a link to one type. These work well on a table top. You slide the material into the bag and slide it over to the sealer. You can put a stiffening insert in the bottom of the bag or place the bags in a plastic tray.

http://zhejiangdongfeng.en.made-in-chin ... -800-.html

Then use a simple spindle on a table with a roll of these at the end.

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/poly-bag-roll

You can then use something like these for delivery tray:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... CEsQ9QEwBQ

or anything that is flat if you need to keep them in a single layer to prevent compressing them. We do that for breads and rolls.

Another way is to stack them on a thin sheet like a baking sheet, slide the stack into the bag tube and pull out the support sheet, snug the bag up to the table top sealer and your set. Not sure about in the states, but the small bar sealers are very common here, its more difficult to find a large one, but not that hard.

Aluminum IMHO is very expensive for one time use packaging, but then thats just me I guess.

I agree that the trays were not very cost effective but I'm not normally doing straight catering/bulk orders. I had thought of the set-up you recommended some time ago and if I get more into larger orders I'll take a closer look again.