The Holmes Foodsaver Automated Vacuum Sealing System does pretty much what it sounds like, and this is to show you how to keep food fresh for a lot longer by taking away the enemy of food freshness, “Air”. It’s the moisture and oxygen in the air, which causes food to lose nutritional value, texture, and a loss of flavour.
While you might think ordinary containers and plastic wrap help, in fact they contribute to these issues by locking air inside. This is why we got excited to go hands-on with the Foodsaver, as this vacuum sealing system would remove the air, and its patented technology extends freshness by up to 5 times longer. This can lead to those owning this system saving up to £600 a year, according to independent reports.
Unboxing the Holmes Foodsaver – before we got to seeing food stay fresh for longer first hand, we had to unbox the device and see exactly how well it’s packaged and what you get inside. The photos below show just that, as we unbox the Holmes Foodsaver.
The main Upright Vacuum Sealing System was well protected, as you can see in the photo above and below. Surrounded by plenty of protection, you can be sure the unit would arrive in one piece.
Inside the box you will find a heat seal vacuum roll, 2 × 3.78L heat seal bags and 3 × 0.94L heat seal bags, 1 Bottle Stopper, 1 Lunch/leftover container, the instruction manual, and of course the main Holmes Foodsaver FSFSSLV3840-060 Upright Vacuum Sealing System.
The vertical design is a vast improvement on older models, as such this design change means you save countertop space. There’s an integrated bag opener, 2 sealing levels for dry and moist food, auto-liquid detection, and also the removable drip tray is dishwasher-safe.
During our hands-on lasting about 2 weeks, we saved plenty of leftovers from going to waste by making them last longer with the Foodsaver by then storing them in the lunch/leftover container, as seen in the photo below.
The vacuum sealing system is ideal for marinating meat in the FoodSaver Marinator, in fact it’s almost endless to what food can be preserved for much longer and this stretches from avocados, leftover cheese to fish!
While there’s an included instruction manual, you will find a quick how to the moment you open the front panel, which aids in installing the heat seal vacuum roll without opening the manual.
As we mentioned before, everything is packaged really well and further thought has gone into holding internal parts in place. You can see this with tape in the photo below, which is visible after opening the front panel. Again, showing Holmes care about how the unit arrives to the customer. This isn’t something we’ve seen with every brand on the market.
There’s further instructions on the front of your Foodsaver Vacuum Sealing System, again to save you having to dig out the instruction manual. This will aid in feeding heat seal bags into the machine, especially during the early days of use.
The buttons are directly on front of the machine, making it really simple-to-use and quick to vacuum seal your food and store in the freezer, fridge, or other suitable environments.
In a nutshell, once the machine is loaded you only need to turn it on and simply put your food into an accessory or bag roll, and then making sure you insert the opened end into the Foodsaver, it will automatically detect the open bag and start the vacuum process.
The vacuum speed is adjusted thanks to an auto liquid detection device, which all depends on the moisture level of food. The system will detect when all the air has been removed, and then the internal double wide sealing strip will seal your roll, or bag, all done automatically.
You know when it’s safe to remove the vacuumed bag, as all the lights on the system will be out. It’s also worth noting the bags we received with the system had white strips on, ideal for putting the date you vacuumed the food.
While you need to be careful how long you store the food for, the reason for white strips, once ready we found a simple re-heat or boiling in a pan worked great for various foods.
We used the hose you see below to remove all the air from the lunchbox container, which then keeps all types of food fresher up to 5 times longer. Great for fruit, or almost anything you want for lunch, or leftovers. To operate, you simple press the third button along after attaching the hose (SEEN BELOW) to the top of your lunch container.
This retractable accessory hose works with additional FoodSaver accessories, like a Marinator, Canisters, and the included Bottle Stopper that we used on an unfinished bottle of wine. This shows how versatile the machine really is!
For the marinator, you’d use the accessory with a pre-programmed setting for 10 minutes to infuse and marinate food in minutes rather than hours. It’s worth noting this accessory is an optional purchase.
You can see the latest price for the Foodsaver Automated Vacuum Sealing System below via Amazon, which is just over £120 at the time of publication. This price will update automatically, so it may change after we publish our hands-on review.
PROs – we love the classy stainless steel front, great build quality, big improvement over the older model, and newbies to vacuum sealing (like us) will learn about the benefits of keeping food fresh for much longer using an easy automated system.
CONs – heavier than some might think (due to build quality) and fairly loud when sealing, but this is needed of course.
Overall, we are really impressed with the Foodsaver from Holmes and would highly recommend it.
