Saran (plastic)
polyethylene food wrap
Saran is the trade name of a thin plastic film used for keeping food fresh by sealing. The compound polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) was discovered in 1933 by researchers from the Dow Chemical Company and registered in 1940. It was acquired by S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. in 1998 and the formulation changed to a less effective polyethylene (PE) in 2004 due to chlorine content.
As a food wrap, the principal advantages of polyvinylidene chloride, compared to other plastics, are its ability to adhere to itself and its very low permeability to water vapor, flavor and aroma molecules, and oxygen. This oxygen barrier prevents food spoilage, while the film barrier to flavor and aroma molecules helps food retain its flavor and aroma.
History
Byproduct resin 1.1 dichloroethyl, a monomer of Polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) was discovered at Dow Chemical Company (Michigan, United States) in 1933 when a lab worker, Ralph Wiley, was having trouble washing beakers used in his process of developing a dry-cleaning product, perchloroethylene.
It was waterproof, strong and versatile; it could be rolled, forged, drawn, welded, stamped and blown. It was initially developed into a product when a division of General Motors requested a flexible film to prevent corrosion on machine guns shipped overseas. It became the preferred packing material for anything that needed protection from the salt and moisture.
“Saran (plastic)” enters the record as polyethylene food wrap. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Saran, plastic and polyethylene can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q911423. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1933, 1940, 1998 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saran (plastic)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.