How should food processors choose refrigeration systems to ensure the best solution and the most appropriate business development? When deciding which food refrigeration process to apply to the food processors'production line, the selection of quick-freezer generally needs to consider four categories of factors: product quality and capacity requirements, plant management requirements, financial considerations and environmental factors.

I. Product quality

1. Water Loss/Water Content

Whether in the process of food freezing (evaporative net weight loss of products) or food thawing (juice loss), all food freezing processes will cause different degrees of water loss of food. Especially in meat products, poultry and aquatic products, evaporative net weight loss reduces the net content and added value of products. Slow food freezing process will lead to the formation of large ice grains in food. When food is thawed, the cell tissue in food will rupture and lead to the loss of food juice. The loss of food juice will affect the color, taste and nutritional characteristics of thawed food. Nutrients and natural pigments will be lost with the loss of food juice. In most cases, the best way to reduce net evaporative loss of food is to reduce food temperature as quickly as possible. Rapid reduction of food temperature can correspondingly reduce the vaporization pressure of free water in the surface layer of food, and thus reduce the dry consumption of food dehydration.

The research results and related experience show that the rapid food freezing process reduces the loss of moisture and yield, and minimizes the changes of taste, texture, color and flavor. In 2002, Mr. Agnelli and Mr. Macscheroni conducted destructive tests on the taste and texture of frozen strawberry products. The results showed that the strawberry maintained a high compact texture when using ultra-low temperature and rapid freezing technology.

2. Food color

Food freezing technology affects the color of thawed food from two aspects. First, as mentioned above, natural pigments are lost with the juice when food is thawed; secondly, due to the continuous formation of ice crystals during food freezing, the concentration of residual unfrozen solutes in food cells increases, and the oxidation of natural pigments and enzymatic browning are accelerated. The slower the food freezing process or the longer it takes to pass through the freezing point, the more significant the effect on the color of food will be. Agnelli and Masheroni have studied the color of frozen and thawed hamburgers. The results show that the color of frozen hamburgers using cryo-mechanical freezing process is closer to the original meat color than that of pure mechanical freezing process.

3. Fragile and Vulnerable Foods

Due to equipment design and product processing characteristics, ultra-low temperature food freezing equipment is considered to be the most suitable for processing fragile foods, including many berries. Because of the higher freezing rate of food, mechanical impact or ultra-low temperature food freezing equipment can better optimize the quality of food. However, the application of mechanical impact refrigeration equipment is limited to flat foods such as hamburgers. Its heat exchange is highly correlated with the direction of its airflow. For bulky or uneven products, the heat exchange rate is relatively low.

Financial considerations

Installation or addition of food refrigeration systems requires consideration of a variety of costs, including pre-investment costs, post-operation and maintenance costs of operation and labor.

1. Capital Input and Operating Cost

There are obvious differences between ultra-low temperature food refrigeration and mechanical refrigeration. The former has higher operating costs, while the latter has a large initial investment. For a given production line, there is always a critical point, and the cumulative operating cost of ultra-low temperature food freezing process will begin to exceed that of mechanical food freezing process. It is noteworthy that in the current economic situation, financial input will be more difficult. Food processing factories are unable or unwilling to invest heavily. Therefore, it is possible that the advantage will be towards ultra-low temperature food freezing.

2. Labor costs

Because of the huge volume and complex structure of mechanical quick-freezing equipment, it tends to require more manpower to clean, and high maintenance requirements, and high skilled maintenance personnel. The importance of these factors will depend on the type of food freezer and the corresponding local labor cost level.

3. Product quality

As mentioned earlier, the minimum water loss is the key to the quality and value of the best food. Especially for high

This is especially true for value-added products. Therefore, the choice of food freezing technology will affect the financial returns of food processing factories. Therefore, customers must consider all financial factors when making trade-offs between ultra-low-temperature food freezing and mechanical methods. Relevant quick-freezing equipment suppliers can assist food processors to inspect and determine the total cost of each food freezing process in a specific long period of time.

Environmental factors

The Federal Food and Beverage Machine Structure of the United States and the International Carbon Alliance estimate that only 10% of energy consumption in the entire food industry chain comes from food processing enterprises, of which about 60% comes from the refrigeration system of large frozen food processors. Although mechanical refrigeration systems require lower energy consumption than ultra-low temperature food refrigeration systems, their technical energy consumption accounts for only a small proportion of the total energy consumption in the food industry chain.

Obviously, the choice of food freezing process is not a simple matter. No single food freezing process is the best choice for all food processors. The advantage of ultra-low temperature food freezing system is that it can adapt to a series of freezing rate requirements of various types of food to improve the quality of its products. Mechanical food refrigeration systems require a lot of capital investment, but may have long-term financial returns. The impact food freezing process actually draws closer to the mechanical and ultra-low temperature food freezers to some extent.

Gaps, however, have limited advantages for specific food types.

IV. Factory Management

When choosing food freezing technology, we must pay attention to the special situation of each food processing plant. Considerations include the size of available space, the scope of production capacity requirements, health requirements, cleaning and maintenance operations. In almost all cases, at the same capacity level, ultra-low-temperature food freezing occupies less space than traditional mechanical freezing. When the production capacity is 500 kg/h, the former only needs 6.4 m2, while the latter needs 19.5 m2. Because of its small space, adaptability to productivity changes, suitable for different types of food, concise, low initial fixed assets investment and other characteristics, ultra-low temperature food quick-freezing equipment is more suitable for most food processors.

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