Abattoir Practices and Animal Products Technology

Reconstituted Collagen Casings

RECONSITUTED COLLAGEN CASINGS

• A recent development is the production of (edible and inedible) re-generated collagen casings.
• This has some of the desirable features of the both natural and cellulose casings and is quite often used for making dry sausage, where advantages are taken for their permeability and shrink characteristics, which are similar to those of natural casings.
• They substitute natural casings because of the uniformity both in size and wall thickness.
• Their primary shortcoming is fragility and poor abuse resistance.
• Another recent development is the edible synthetic casings (plastic tubes or bags), which is widely used for pork sausages.
• It is produced from alginates.
• Product, which receives no smoke during processing, may be stuffed into an impermeable film of casings known as “Saran”.