Blog

Lamb is a counter product, and the counter is where its value is either realised or lost. The pad's job in that pack is not only to take liquid up; it is to hold the cut face out of standing liquid for as long as the pack is on show.

Most pads are components. The one in a display case is not — it is part of what the shopper looks at, and it is judged in the same glance as the product.

A catering pack and a retail pack look alike and are specified on different grounds. The retail pack has to look right in a case; the catering pack has to hold together through a service.

Leafy vegetables are alive when they are packed. They lose water through their leaves rather than releasing it from a cut face, and that single difference reverses what the pad is for.

A berry pack is damaged mechanically before it is damaged any other way. The fruit is soft, thin-skinned and easily bruised, and every bruise releases juice that marks the berries around it.

An ice pack is specified by two variables, and neither is size. The first is how long the shipment has to hold its temperature band; the second is whether the pack may touch the food.