FoodSaver FreshSaver Handheld Vacuum Sealing System

I've owned a Foodsaver for years (now on my third) so I'm familiar with their conventional vacuum bags and canisters.

I got an email from FoodSaver touting the new FreshSaver zipper bags for frequently used items so you don't have to keep cutting down and re-sealing regular FoodSaver bags.

Sounded good to me, so I ordered one. The handheld unit vacuums reasonably quickly, and the small compatible storage containers work well.

However, the quart and gallon size bags zipper are worse than useless. They appear to hold a vacuum initially, so you put it in the fridge only to find the next day that the bag lost its vacuum. The bags are stiffer than regular zipper bags, so when the seal fails, the bag expands and allows more air in than a regular plastic bag. The unit was supplied with 5 quart bags and 5 gallon bags. Only four bags held a vacuum more than a few minutes! Of those four, only two bags held vacuum a second time. Even those two failed on the third use.

Absolutely maddening you THINK you sealed the bag, only to find out hours later it isn't sealed after all!

I called Jarden (Foodsaver's corporate owner) to complain. They said the only thing they could do is send me a box of 12 gallon-size zipper FreshSaver bags as a 'goodwill' gesture. Unfortunately, those bags are just as bad as the first ones. The problem is the valve tab. The bags feature heat-welded multilayer construction (good) and heat-welded zippers (good), but the valve tab is fastened using a pressure sensitive adhesive like 'scotch' tape (BAD). The tabs fail, either by leaking when the tab comes loose, or when the tab doesn't stay sealed around the pinhole in the bag under the tab. As a test, I vacuumed a bag and immediately covered the tab with a square of clear 3M box sealing tape, and then the vacuum holds! Unfortunately, when you remove the tape, the vacuum tab peels off too, so that isn't a fix, but confirms the source of the failure.

Absolutely worthless design! Customer reps at Jarden aren't able to help they just want to sell you more stuff. (Too bad for you if what they just sold you doesn't work like they promise!)

I love the idea, but the bags are too annoying to bother with. I consider this a wasted purchase.

P.S. Some here have commented/suggested that I must have used the bags with wet/greasy foods that undermine the seal. (I learned that lesson 15+ years ago with standard Foodsaver.) I've used the Freshsaver with hard, dry cheese (Parmigiano Reggiano) and made sure the tab stayed flat, but still have leaks. I'm glad there are those who have had no problems, but that makes me wonder if Foodsaver has poor quality control on the Freshsaver bags, some work, some don't? As for me, I'm back to using the regular Foodsaver bags since they work very well.

I saw this on the shelf when I was buying some new bags for my big old foodsaver vacuum system. I thought this was a great idea. And at $20, what a deal! I did scoff a bit at the price of the special ziploc bags you had to buy, but I still thought it was worth a try.

If I only ever used this for lunchmeat and cheese, I would still be SO happy with this investment. These are two items that always go bad before we use it all, and that I am never going to pull out my big old foodsaver vacuum and bags every time I open them up.

I transferred my bag of salami and bag of sliced cheese into the special fresh saver ziplocs and it has just been awesome. It only takes a couple of extra seconds to grab the freshsaver and seal those bags up tight each time you get into them. My meat and cheese looks like the package has never been opened several weeks later. I couldn't be happier.

I know I will end up using this for a lot more down the road...but I couldn't let this great product continue to sit up here with no reviews. It is just excellent. It is great for items that you access a lot that are a hassle to deal with the traditional food saver system on. Or if you can't afford to invest in the bigger system. I highly recommend it. The only downside is the bags are pricey, but again, these bags get opened an resealed a lot, they last a long time...and you could probably wash and reuse them a few times if you were so inclined.

UPDATE 1/14/10: I will add that I have seen some comments about the seals failing and not working. The only time I have had this problem is if I have sealed and resealed the same bag more than say 15 times or so. Also, you can have failure of the seal if the product inside is very greasy or moist, to the extent that grease or liquid gets sucked up through the seal when sealing...than can compromise it. If not those cases, I have never had a bag fail on me. I still highly recommend this product. And I saw your latest commercial Food Saver people. How about sending me some love?

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I only use this with the mason jar attachments. It is not intended for that, and FoodSaver will tell you the two are not compatible. I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a vacuum sealer just to use the jar attachment pieces, so I gambled that the cheap handheld unit would work, or I could make it work. I didn't even have to buy a hose to connect the two parts, but you can if you want. I just put the handheld unit over the hole in the mason jar attachment, push down and turn it on. It sucks the air out of the jar just fine without a hose piece.

A tip on mason jars in the fridge and freezer: put thick rubber bands on them. They absorb the shock if you accidentally clang them together. They can be touchy when cold.

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Purchased the FoodSaver® FreshSaver® Handheld Vacuum Sealing System from Wal-Mart about 6 months ago along with 3 boxes of quart sized bags to go with it. The handheld unit works just fine, sucking out the air out of the bags like it is designed to do. But the failure of the system is the bags. The consistanly failed to maintain the vacuum status that they are designed to do.

After about 2-3 days, air is back in the bags. This is just not with the sample bags that came with the unit, it is also with the bags that are new in sealed up boxes fresh off the shelf. So I have lodged my complaint with FoodSaver over my loss of $45.00 not that I am expecting anything to come of this, but perspective buyers need to be aware of the failure.

Two days ago I purchased from the very same Wal-Mart, Ziploc's version of the system. It is a manual pump made out of cheep plastic for less than $3.00. Guess what folks, it works and the bag is still maintaining its vacuum on the product that I have placed inside. So a $3.00 product beats out a $19.95 product that is way more complicated.

The Freshsaver unit does make a very nice paperweight through.

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I first bought a Zip lock vacuum system and while I was pleased with it the hand pump often took 30 to 40 pumps to create the vacuum in a gallon bag even when evacuating most of air before sealing. This unit works with both the Zip lock bags and the Food saver bags and containers. And I have the hand pump from Zip lock to use if charge is down on this unit. You should note that instructions provide that you should charge for 24 hours before first use. Also I note some reviews comment about vacuum not holding and I find that I often have to double check the seal to be sure it is holding and occasionally will have to remove air after having been in freezer or refrigerator for a while. So it is not perfect but still far better than using non vacuum bags or containers.

I bought both Zip lock and this system and some Food Saver containers for my son and daughter after having used for a while. My daughter was concerned about BPA and I was pleased to note that both Zip lock and Food Saver websites say that all their products are BPA free.

A tip: The bags from Ziplock or Foodsaver are far more expensive than regular bags so what I have done is use cheaper zip lock bags that I do not seal. I put those inside the vacuum bags, especially for meat and other items that would require disposal of a bag after use. I turn the unsealed bags with flap facing up (so no dripping from meat). This way I can use the vacuum bags over and over again at a considerable savings. My experience is that this has kept food fresher much longer than in unsealed containers and will likely pay for itself in food saved. I tried with bag of salad from Sams that usually spoiled in less than a week if not used in 5 days or so. Kept it fresh for nearly two weeks.