The new packaging was announced by Sainsbury's this week and is to be on supermarket shelves by 3 May 2018.

The packaging is aimed at people that do not like touching raw meat when preparing meals. According to a survey published on Mintel, two in five (39%) British people, aged 16-34, say it’s hard to know when meat is cooked to a safe temperature, and over one third (37%) of young cooks say they prefer not to handle raw meat when cooking. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Katherine Hall, product development manager for meat, fish and poultry at Sainbury's, claimed that many young people are 'scared' of touching raw meat.

The fear of touching meat apparently stems from the fear of contracting food poisoning through E. coli contamination. Sainsbury's believes that it is disconcerting that so many young people do not understand how to safely prepare and cook meat so have taken the opportunity to reduce the amount of contact that people are required to have with the meat in order to prepare it. The new Doypack packaging would allow people to merely tear the top of the packaging off and pour out the contents into the pan.

Others have voiced concerns over the extra, non-biodegradable plastic required to produce the touch-free packaging.