Cold Storage of Poultry.
The growth of the cold storage of poultry has been phenomenal. Poultry is packed in thin boxes that will readily lose their heat and these are stacked in a freezer with a temperature near the zero point. The temperature used for holding poultry are anywhere from 0 degree up to 20 degrees. Poultry is held for periods of one to six weeks at temperature above the freezing point.
Frozen poultry will keep almost indefinitely save for the drying out, which is due to the fact that evaporation will proceed slowly even from a frozen body. The time frozen poultry is stored varies from a few weeks to eight or ten months.
The usual rule is that any crop is highest in price when it first comes on the market and cheapest just after the point of its greatest production. Thus, broilers are high in May and cheap in September. In such cases the goods are carried from the season of plenty to the following season of scarcity. This period is always less than a year. The idea circulated by wild writers, that cold storage poultry was kept several years is an economic impossibility. The interest on the investment alone would make the holding of storage goods into the second season of plenty, quite unprofitable, but when the costs of storage, insurance and shrinkage are to be paid, storing poultry for more than one season becomes absurd. The fowl that has been once frozen cannot be made to look "fresh killed" again. For that reason packers like to get a monopoly on a particular market so that the two classes of goods will not have to compete side by side. The quality of the frozen fowl when served is very fair, practically as good as and some say better than the fresh killed.
Cold storage poultry is best thawed out by being placed over night in a tank of water. Poultry prejudice prevents the practice of retailing the goods frozen, though this method would be highly desirable.
Drawn or Undrawn Fowls.
Within the last two or three years there has been a great hue and cry about the marketing of poultry without drawing the entrails.
The objection to the custom rests upon the general prejudice to allowing the entrails of animals to remain in the carcass. If a little thought is given the subject, however, it is seen that human prejudice is very inconsistent in such matters. We draw beef and mutton carcasses, to be sure, but fish and game are stored undrawn, and as for oysters and lobsters we not only store them undrawn but we eat them so.
The facts about the undrawn poultry proposition are as follows: The intestines of the fowl at death contain numerous species of bacteria, whereas the flesh is quite free from germs. If the carcass is not drawn, but immediately frozen hard, the bacteria remain inactive and no essential change occurs. If the carcass is stored without freezing, or remains for even a short time at a high temperature, the bacteria will begin to grow through the intestinal walls and contaminate the flesh.
Now, if the fowl is drawn, the unprotected flesh is exposed to bacterial contamination, which results in decomposition more rapidly than through the intestinal walls. The opening of the carcass also allows a greater drying out and shrinkage.