Upswing in High-Tech Freezing Technologies

In modern society, a life without cooling and freezing equipment to preserve food is unthinkable. In order to be able to feed an entire population, society has managed to produce foods with a prolonged storage life. Even though freezing is not suitable for all foods, as it causes physical and chemical changes in many foods. Consequently, it would reduce quality when the products are thawed.

Overall, there is the interpretation that fast freezing offers certain advantages to the preservation of frozen food quality due to the formation of small ice crystals. Smaller ice crystals cause there to be less cellular damage and therefore keeping the products juicier, with better texture and less drip loss when thawed.

However, this is not exactly true for all foods, as there is no evidence it advances or improves the final quality of the product. Nonetheless, worldwide the freezing processes are presently being studied and developed for innovation, in order to eventually improve freezing times and product quality.

Some progressions in the current freezing technology (impingement and hydro-fluidization) cause enhancements of existing freezing methods (air blast and immersion, for example). By being able to freeze products through rapid freezing, product quality has been improved significantly. For example, Frigoscandia Equipment developed impingement technology in the 90s in order to deliver quick freezing speeds like cryogenic freezing but only with half of the costs.

Even though speed and food safety are in particular key elements of the freezing technology, sales have increased and selling prices are higher due to significant quality improvements. A European frozen bread manufacturer noticed that the product quality development was so substantial that it practically doubled his sales.

“If you freeze products very slowly, there’s time for the moisture to migrate,” according to Frigoscandia Equipment research and development engineer, Jon Hocker. “When moisture can migrate and form larger crystals, those crystals don’t have as moist of a mouthfeel’ as when you freeze very quickly. If you leave time for the moisture to move around during freezing, the quality of the product changes.”

Spiral freezing

One type of freezing technology that is rising in popularity amongst growing business owners is spiral freezing. These spiral freezers are generally large in size, and able to freeze a large amount of foods simultaneously while the quality of the product is preserved. This means the texture, moisture and flavor stay consistent throughout the complete freezing process. Even though the uninterrupted freezing process is one of the main benefits of spiral freezing, the compact form of the freezers compared to tunnel freezers is considered valuable to many food processing companies.

Spiral freezers are designed to provide 360-degree continuous freezing in order to freeze faster and more efficient, they are built to save space and minimize the footprint in freezing space. The high freezing capacity results in less man power needed.

The food industry has always had its focus on being able to quickly send products to the consumer as fast as possible. Manufacturers want to make sure the products stay fresh with little to no change in the product, and with new freezing technology, they have the ability to store seasonal items year-round. This allows manufacturers to grow and expand segments of the business to new marketplaces and increase production without having to deal with mounting inventory waste.

There are many different varieties of spiral freezers, where they can range in specifications, designs and different features. Once your business has decided to invest in new freezing equipment, the next step is to decide upon the type and brand of spiral freezer.

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