What’s with the new trend I’m seeing in grocery store bread where they wrap the sliced loaves in a plastic liner inside the plastic bag?
It started with Natural Ovens brand breads and their uber-healthy flavors. I didn’t think anything of it, just figured it was a high-end brand trying to look more artesanal. Now it seems everyone short of generics and Wonder Bread has adopted this process, why?
The interior wrapper is not air-tight and it’s really annoying to try and get open without destroying it. I never noticed an issue with standard bagging practice, so I left to ask what changed?
The only possible thing I’ve dreamt up that could motivate this is durability, allowing the loaf to suffer more abuse without getting crushed or punctured, but I can’t say that’s all that compelling. I don’t recall there being a blight of unabused loaves and I can’t say this thin, brittle plastic lining protects the loaf from anything besides my hungry little fingers.
I’ve assumed that the health nuts had been successful in getting them to reduce the tiny amount of preservatives they had in the bread, thereby increasing the cost, since they had to increase their own packaging costs, and increase the aggravation index to the guy who just wants to grab a couplea slices of bread. And don’t get me started about the phone answering menus…
Consider the visual appeal: The tighly wrapped bread is in a cute little loaf sitting on the shelf.
The bread wrapped only in a loose bag gets tossed around by customers and stocking staff, causing the slices to slide around, get bent, etc etc.
The customer is probably more likely to buy the wrapped bread because it looks fresher on the shelf than bread where the slices have had some freedom of movement.
The Dimpflemeyer rye bread I buy comes that way – an heat-shrunk plastic wrapping around the bread and then placed in a larger outer bag. I always presumed this was done for freshness. Since rye is a pretty firm bread I guess they weren’t worried about it being squished from the shrinkwrap they used.
Observation only:
Bread in the inner wrap keeps fresh longer.
Bread in a lose bag has more exposure to air and both goes stale and molds quicker.
I cannot cite this. It is only personal observation.