Crunchy Food Breakage Test for Vacuum Sealers

This test is part of How Shouldit Tests Vacuum Sealers v1.0

Breakfast like cereal, corn flakes, oat rings, etc. and grain-based snacks like crackers or breadsticks are some of the best foods to have in the house. They have long shelf lives, are easy to prepare, and awfully nutritious. Now, with the availability of vacuum sealing technology, they can stay safe to consume for much longer.

Many vacuum sealers on the market can complete such tasks in just a press of a button. However, only some of them can do so while avoiding breaking the content heavily. This test is intended to highlight exactly that: how our products if choice fare with crunchy, brittle content.

Testing Procedure

In a nutshell, we sift and vacuum seal 4.5 ounces of appropriate-sized cornflakes in an 8×12-inch vacuum bag, then we cut open the bag and evaluate the amount of breakage in the after product. 

To ensure accuracy, we first use a sieve with openings large enough (roughly 0.03×0.03 inches) to hold whole-size flakes and filter parts that are already broken out of our 4.5-ounce input. Next, we proceed to seal the food using the standard/basic settings on each product. If a product has a Gentle preset with a less forceful vacuum, we run that product using said preset. 

After the sealing is complete and thoroughly checked, we cut the bag and use the same sieve from before to filter out the broken portion of flakes following the process. Finally, we weight the broken portion and calculate the percentage in relation to the input quantity.

Scoring Metrics

For every 10% of crushed flakes, we subtract 1 point from each product’s total points of 10. Consequently, it’s 0.1 points for each 1%. 

• 0 oz - 10 points
• 0.45 oz - 9 points
• 0.9 oz - 8 points
• 1.35 oz - 7 points
• 1.8 oz - 6 points
• 2.25 oz - 5 points
• 2.7 oz - 4 points
• 3.15 oz - 3 points
• 3.6 oz - 2 points
• 4.05 oz - 1 points

For example, the Nutrichef PKVS18BK vacuum sealers, with its gentle vacuum setting, manages to break only 4.7% of the cornflakes—an absolute showcase of what these machines can do—which equals to a 0.5-point penalty that leads to the product’s final score of 9.5 for this section.

In contrast, the FoodSaver VS-0160, a powerful and effective sealer that lacks a gentle setting, crushes 40% of the content, which results in a 4-point penalty and a final score of 6 points.

One final example that’s worth highlighting is the Bonsenkitchen VS2100’s excellent performance for this test. Despite lacking a specific preset, its default suction power allows it to preserve much of the input, breaking only 3.1% of the crunchy cornflakes. That translates to its impressive final score of 9.7.