Is It Necessary to Bag Meat Separately at the Supermarket?

Let’s set the scene: You’re in the grocery store. Maybe it’s busy. Maybe your toddler is 3 seconds away from a meltdown and the baby lost her shoe somewhere in the store. You forgot all your reusable bags, but you somehow managed to remember all the items on your list, including chicken breast for tonight’s dinner and ground beef for burgers this weekend. The kind bagger asks if you want your chicken and beef in a separate plastic bag. As you’re juggling everything else, you need to make a decision, and you’re not sure what is the right one. Can you skip the separate bag? It’s better for the environment to skip the plastic, right? But what about food safety? Is cross contamination a big deal?

It turns out the answer is very clear. Experts say you should always put your raw meat in a separate bag at the supermarket.

The Importance of Bagging Meat Separately

As to the question of whether you need to bag your meat and poultry separately, Michael Handalchef at the Institute of Culinary Education, said, “A very big YES.” He continued, “We sometimes may not realize this, but cautious handling of raw items is necessary, especially if they are being purchased with other groceries.” While meat is cooked so as to remove the risk of food-borne pathogens, getting them on your hands, counter, other food products or other surfaces before cooking can lead to serious illness.

“The outside packaging for raw meat and poultry items may contain a number of pathogens (organisms which may cause disease) that can lead to cross-contamination once you have them in your own kitchen,” Handal said. The packaging for raw meat is often this plastic wrap, which may not have a complete seal around the meat inside. Also, during shipping and packing, if even one package breaks open, the outsides of the other packages become contaminated.

Handal says the most commonly found pathogens that can be present on raw protein packaging are E. coli and staph, which can live on meat, and salmonella, campylobacter, listeria and clostridium perfringens, which can be found on poultry. “Many of these pathogens can survive on packaging surfaces anywhere from four to 32 hours,” he says. That means that the same day or up to a day and a half after coming in contact with meat and poultry packaging, you and your loved ones can still get sick.

Practical Tips for Safe Grocery Shopping

While in the grocery store, Handal likes to grab plastic bags from the produce section so he has them on hand when he gets to the meat section. Most meat sections also have plastic bags above the case that you can use to protect your other foods from potential contaminants. “I keep these raw products in the small, upper rack of the grocery cart, away from other groceries,” he said. Even when your meats are bagged, you should be extra cautious and keep raw food away from other products.

“Once home, be sure to place them in a separate area in your refrigerator, preferably on the bottom shelf away from other items,” Handal said. Keeping the meat on the bottom shelf is smart because, if a container were to leak, the potentially contaminated liquid wouldn’t drip down onto other foods.

Environmental Impact of Plastic Bag Usage

You may be weighing the environmental impact of plastic bag use when deciding whether to bag meat separately. There have been several reports from various outlets over the past few years that indicate that we should be limiting our plastic use for both personal and environmental reasons. According to a recent United Nations Foundation article, “If trends continue, plastic waste will triple by 2060, with dire consequences for both ecosystems and human health.” Doing your part to help the earth might mean that you’re actively limiting your plastic use.

Plastic is not biodegradable, so there is little that can be done about the plastic polluting our water. Therefore, using less plastic and demanding less plastic production is an important step. Microplastics and nanoplastics have been in the news because of the possible negative health outcomes that result from these products building up in our bodies. Health care professionals have warned about the effect plastics can have on endocrine systems and say plastic can contain carcinogens or neurotoxicants.

Plastic production and elimination both contribute to greenhouse gases, which is bad for the environment. While changes need to be made on a global scale, including production of alternatives to plastic, there are smaller changes we can make ourselves to help.

Since there is specific evidence of harm caused by single-use plastic bags, many grocery stores have stopped bagging groceries in plastic, but even if they do, you can opt for paper or bring your own bags. When it comes to meat packaging, however, you do need to make a plan to prevent contamination.

Alternatives to Plastic for Meat Packaging

We so often carry our own reusable bags with us, so it may be tempting to pop your meat into one of your reusable bags and forgo the plastic. However, keep material in mind. “The very popular canvas-type bags are perfectly fine for regular groceries, but as we have seen, something that is non-absorbent and easy to clean would be preferable for raw proteins,” said Handal.

The most important thing to consider when food shopping is sanitation. “Since so many of us now need to supply our own bags when shopping, it would be very useful to consider a separate and dedicated shopping bag for raw protein items and one that has a lining that may be wiped down and sanitized between uses,” said Handal.

The Bottom Line

Even though saving the environment and cutting down the use of plastics is a worthwhile goal, food safety needs to be a top priority. Always separate your raw meat and poultry from other groceries, wrap packages of meat in an additional plastic bag or dedicated non-canvas reusable bag and store uncooked meat on the bottom shelf of the fridge to keep it away from other food.