A Visqueen Shop Apron

Viskase Companies, Inc. is a Chicago-based corporation that is a world leader in the production of nonedible cellulose and plastic casings and nettings used in the preparation and packaging of processed meat and poultry products. Smaller diameter products like hot dogs, smoked sausages, and beef sticks use the company's NOJAX Casings. Large cellulose casings, which can be smoked, are suitable for medium-sized meat products like bologna, salami, and semi-boneless hams. Fibrous casings can accommodate a variety of sizes for processed meats such as bologna, ham, and salami, as well as poultry products. These food products are also suitable for Viskase's polyamide casings, VISFLEX and VISMAX, which can be used for cooking and shipping. The company's SCOTnet Nettings, made of polyester elastic, are used in both processed meats and poultry products. In addition, Viskase uses regenerated cellulose to produce MEMBRA-CEL, a hydrophilic membrane suitable for dialysis purposes in the laboratory. The company has suffered a number of setbacks in recent years, starting with a leveraged buyout (LBO) in 1989 that saddled it with massive debt and including outbreaks of "Mad Cow" and foot-and-mouth disease that have hurt the sale of beef products around the world. As a result the company has been forced to shed assets and close plants, while having its stock delisted by the NASDAQ in 2000.

The history of Viskase began with Erwin O. Freund, who sponsored research to find a substitute for the animal gut casing that was the basis of his Chicago business. For hundreds of years sausages and similar foods had relied on the cleansed intestines of sheep, cows, or pigs, casings that possessed a number of drawbacks. Because the American sausage industry had to rely on other countries to provide it with large numbers of intestine casings, its growth was stunted. Freund's goal was to find an alternative to natural casings, one that relied on a readily available raw material, was strong enough to withstand the pressure of meat forced into it and the cooking process, and could be created in uniform sizes. Freund's researchers latched onto the "viscose" process, which relied on purified cotton cellulose that was processed into filaments. This material was then coated on a pipe, dried, and removed by dipping in a vat of weak acid. The resulting tube was stuffed with meat, linked, and brought to the smokehouse. When smoked the casing sagged, which at first appeared to be a major disappointment, but it was quickly realized that when the casing was removed the meat inside remained intact and firm. Instead of creating a synthetic edible casing, Freund had stumbled upon the Skinless Frankfurter.

Freund organized his new business as the Visking Corporation in 1925 and began producing NOJAX casing for frankfurters in a small building located in the Chicago Union Stockyards. The company continued its research efforts and in 1927 introduced cellulose casings for large sausage products. In 1931 Visking developed a way to print on the casings, to make trademarks and promotional material visible in the meat case, and also brought out the first colored casings. Even stronger cellulose casings were introduced in 1935. In 1941, to spur research efforts, as well as sales, Visking founded the Foods Science and Quality Institute to help the meat and poultry industry to produce new products and make better use of Visking products. During the 1950s Visking developed striped NOJAX casing, fibrous casings called E-Z PEEL, and TASTIJAX, a casing made from algin. Moreover, the company's research took Visking into areas beyond casings, transforming it into the largest U.S. producer of polyethylene film. It developed Visten, a plastic film for packaging food products, and a transparent plastic film it called Visqueen, which found applications in containers, aprons, shower curtains, aprons, raincoats, and as a moisture barrier building material.

With innovation came prosperity. In 1932 demand for Visking products was strong enough to warrant the building of a new plant in Chicago. In the 1950s, manufacturing facilities were opened in Loudon, Tennessee, and Beauvais, France. In 1956 the company, now a public corporation, recorded net sales of $57.7 million, while earning more than $5 million, or $2.36 per share, prompting a three-for-one stock split. At this point the company chose to shed it independence and join forces with the major supplier of the raw materials it needed to produce polyethylene film--Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation and its resin-producing subsidiary, the Bakelite Company. Union Carbide acquired Visking in 1956, a $91 million stock deal that gave shareholders one share of Union Carbide for every 2.5 shares of Visking, which now began operating as the Visking Co. division of Union Carbide. Six months after Visking shareholders approved the deal, however, the Federal Trade Commission stepped in, filing a compliant that charged Union Carbide with violating antitrust legislation, the first time that the FTC objected to a "forward vertical" merger, one in which a supplier acquired a customer. The complaint maintained that Visking was in a position to acquire a monopolistic control over the polyethylene industry, essentially because its corporate parent had the power to manipulate resin prices.

Union Carbide denied the charges but in October 1961 the FTC ruled that the corporation had one year to divest itself of its Visking holdings. The corporation appealed, but finally in 1963 it was forced to sell the polyethylene film operations of Visking, including the Visqueen trademark, to Ethyl Corp.





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