Refrigeration Applied to food; recent innovations
Date Issued
November 2012
Abstract
Food is a fragile resource and refrigeration and cold chain plays a key role in food
preservation. An overview of selected technologies, are presented in this paper. Freezing
addresses different issues in particular in terms of energy demand; based on the
consideration of the international institute of refrigeration, recommendation can be proposed
resulting in substantial energy savings. A focus is then proposed on recently developed
technologies; superchilling applied to seafood, high pressure processing and freezing under
static electric field (electro-freezing). Superchilling consists of preserving products at
temperature close to the initial freezing temperature; such a strategy permits reduction of
water activity and potentially leads to extension of shelf life. High pressure processing can
be used to freeze products and also to process seafood. High quality frozen foods can be
obtained with pressure shift freezing process with refined ice crystallization. More recently,
freezing under electric field has been developed and applied to meat and seafood; recent
results demonstrate the advantages of electro-freezing in terms of ice crystals
microstructure.
preservation. An overview of selected technologies, are presented in this paper. Freezing
addresses different issues in particular in terms of energy demand; based on the
consideration of the international institute of refrigeration, recommendation can be proposed
resulting in substantial energy savings. A focus is then proposed on recently developed
technologies; superchilling applied to seafood, high pressure processing and freezing under
static electric field (electro-freezing). Superchilling consists of preserving products at
temperature close to the initial freezing temperature; such a strategy permits reduction of
water activity and potentially leads to extension of shelf life. High pressure processing can
be used to freeze products and also to process seafood. High quality frozen foods can be
obtained with pressure shift freezing process with refined ice crystallization. More recently,
freezing under electric field has been developed and applied to meat and seafood; recent
results demonstrate the advantages of electro-freezing in terms of ice crystals
microstructure.