Little do we realise there is a whole industry built up around food packaging and food packaging machinery. And all for a good cause. The way food is processed and packaged makes untold difference to the way food preserves its flavours and how well it will last en route to the shops and in our fridges.

However, while we bandy words about in everyday life, there are some that are connected to the food packaging machinery industry that we probably have no idea of and could easily confuse with others.

Shrink wrap is something we all know about. That's the one that refuses to allow you access to your food without a degree in surgery to get into it. Shrink wrap is not something you do when you have finished with your psychiatrist.

Vacuum packers also come from the realms of packaging machinery. These are devices that suck air out of the packaging to lengthen the life of the packaged food. They are not, contrary to popular belief, little ladies that stuff Henry hoovers into boxes on a production line.

The mincer is not as you would believe, the homosexual man from the hairdressers. The mincer is in fact, a piece of food packaging machinery that creates the mince for your shepherd's pie. It will not ask you if you would like something for the weekend and it will not have heated arguments with its boyfriend. It will, however, provide perfectly uniform meat to go in that spag bol.

Sausage fillers come in for all manner of silly innuendo's and jokes but are actually another addition to the packaging machinery sector. What I want to know is how they get the leeks into the sausages. Surely, this would fill up several sausages before they get the meat in, or is that what they mean? You have to cook two pork sausages and then two leek sausages and eat them together? Bit of a silly idea if you ask me.

Injectors are instruments that will infuse additives and spices to food products. They are not large, manly looking women in nurse's uniforms standing guard at the school medical room waiting to give you that dreaded TB injection.

Dip tanks are very useful in food preparation and will be used before the food is put through the food packaging machinery. They serve to hold dips of the kind you put on your food. They are not armoured vehicles for the mentally challenged.

Food packaging machinery would not be complete without smoking machines. Food, such as meat and fish, can be hung inside these contraptions and smoked for any length of time. They can make use of cheap rate electricity by being set to work overnight, bringing freshly smoked kippers for first thing in the morning.

Smoking machines are not new places for the cigarette smokers of this world. Those are called outdoor smoking areas and are entirely different. They are neither warm nor fragrant nor clean. They do nothing for the preservation of anything other than cigarette manufacturers bank balances.

So, it would seem, that next time you are swearing about not being able to get into your Sunday joint, there is a purpose behind it and you should be grateful that so much thought has gone into the best way of taking care of your food and that you're not back in Victorian times where meat was hung in a shop until it was crawling with wildlife.