Package of shirred food casing and method

A method of forming a package including a bundle of tubular shirred sticks of food casing encased in an insitu formed container comprising the steps of:

• a) arranging the shirred sticks in a plurality of rows stacked one on another to form a bundle with the longitudinal axes of the sticks being parallel and with the stick ends being coplanar, the coplanar stick ends defining the ends of said bundle;
• b) wrapping a heat shrinkable film around said bundle in a direction transverse the longitudinal axes of said sticks, said film having a length defined between opposite ends of the film sufficient to extend about the perimeter of said bundle and a width defined between longitudinal side margins of the film greater than the bundle length;
• c) bringing the opposite ends of said film together at a top of said bundle, and folding each side margin of said film over an end of said bundle;
• d) applying an adhesive tape to hold said film opposite ends together;
• e) heating said film to induce shrinking and stiffening of said film thereby forming a container insitu about said bundle which container has a shape determined by the shape of the bundle, and causing, by said heating, the stiffening of said folded over side margins;
• and
• f) insulating said film opposite ends during said heating to at least partly avoid shrinking said film opposite ends and prevent the welding of one of the film opposite ends to another whereby said film opposite ends remain unsealed and releasable one from the other and define flaps which open to provide a recloseable access to said sticks within the insitu formed container.