Only a few decades ago, one of the dominant features of the refrigerated meat section of the grocery store was hanging sandwich meat. If sausage and bacon were in pull-out packages on a shelf, the sandwich meat was often hanging on hooks; you could see what the meat looked like.
Today, that is disappearing. However, it does remain in older demographic stores, particuarly in the South. Here, the TriStar independent grocery in Kilmarnock, Va. The TriStar is a community that is both rural, and poor, as well as having a wealthy summer and retiree crowd. Notice the 89 cent Buddig meat packages, as well as the Kraft Heinz brand Oscar Mayer, with its familiar yellow, on the right.
The hanging meat tradition is a legacy of old butcher shops, where fresh meats were displayed on hooks, allowing customers to select directly. The idea continued into the late 20th century, with the growth of the modern supermarket, with Oscar Mayer as the premium product, and cheaper regional meat brands surrounding. With the old idea, one could see the different varieties of meat, including salami, ham and bologna, all neatly packaged in the round. The only exception was a large bologna from makers like Gwaltney of Smithfield, who had a two-inch family sized bologna stack on a shelf.
Today, in many demographic areas, the hanging meats have completely disappeared. In many Publix stores in Florida, Oscar Mayer, which traditionally has a wide display of different meats, is basically now in a stack. Below, the meats in a Publix in Cape Haze, Fla. In most groceries today, the consumer gets sliced meat from behind a deli counter; small packages of Boar’s Head are pre-positioned across from the deli so that those who do not want to wait can get it.
Packaged meat took off in 1941, when Cryovac introduced vacuum packaging, revolutionizing meat storage by extending shelf life and reducing spoilage. The Cryovac room became a standard part of sandwich meat companies. But things changed in 2009, when Land O’Frost introduced their DoubleZip resealable packaging.
