Tubular sausage casings can be prepared from non-animal materials, primarily starches and flours by film-casting followed by gluing with an edible glue composed of konjac and carrageenan. In this way, it has been made possible to prepare non-animal meat casings commercially, that can be used with conventional sausage production technology.

A shirr-stable, tubular food casing having a glued, permanently elastic longitudinal seam based on a flat fibrous textile material coated with acrylic, collagen and/or a protein derived therefrom is provided. The seam is generated using a reactive hotmelt glue. The glued seam is resistant to boiling for a long time and also exhibits sufficient stability thereafter. Exemplary textile materials include a consolidated nonwoven or spunbonded nonwoven, a woven fabric, loop-formingly knitted fabric, laid fabric, loop-drawingly knitted fabric. To form the casing, the textile material is coated in the flat state. The coated textile material is cut into strips according to the diameter of the casing to be produced and glued using a reactive hotmelt glue, such as a PUR hotmelt glue, to form the tube. The food casing is preferably used as artificial sausage casing or for wrapping cheese or fish.

A tubular casing has a package design (la) printed on an original fabric film (1) with transparent no-print zones (2, 3) formed along left and right end edges (2a, 3a). Best before date characters (4) are inkjet printed on the no-print zone (2). The fabric film (1) is bent to place the no-print zone (2) with printed characters on a lower side and form the fabric film (1) in a cylindrical shape. A heat seal portion (H) is formed including the date characters (4), in the no-print zone (2) located on the lower side. The heat seal portion (H) is formed up to the end edge (2a) of the no-print zone (2) and a no-heat seal portion (S) is formed on the end edge (3a) side of the no-print zone (3) located on an upper side to form a casing portion. Both ends of the casing portion are sealed.

The invention relates to uncooked dry or semi-dry sausage products in tubular casings that are based on an optionally-coated textile material. The tubular casing has a longitudinal seam with a sealing strip. On the sealing strip is located a discontinuous layer of a sealing polymer. The sealing strip is bonded to the casing essentially at sealing points defined by the discontinuous layer. The invention further relates to a process for producing the uncooked dry or semi-dry sausage product.

Tubular sausage casings can be prepared from non-animal materials, primarily starches and flours by film-casting followed by gluing with an edible glue composed of konjac and carrageenan. In this way, it has been made possible to prepare non-animal meat casings commercially, that can be used with conventional sausage production technology.