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Chilling and Freezing of Prepared Consumer

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For inclusion in: Sun D.-W. (ed.) (2001) Advances in Food Refrigeration. Leatherhead,
Surrey, U.K.: Leatherhead Publishing, ISBN 0 905748 83 2/ 978 0 905748 83 2, pp. 438-
471.

Chilling and Freezing of Prepared Consumer Foods

Philip G. Creed

Bournemouth University
Fern Barrow
Poole
Dorset
BH12 5BB
United Kingdom.

Abstract
Prepared consumer foods have shown high rates of growth in the market in recent years.
This chapter discusses some of the reasons for this high growth rate such as changing family
structures, more working women and increasing disposable income. The central role of
refrigeration in maintaining the quality of food during the time buffer between processing and
consumption is also illustrated using examples of prepared foods in different market sectors;
ready meals, snack products such as pies and sandwiches, pizzas and chilled desserts.
Aspects of the safety and quality of prepared foods through the cold chain are discussed with
reference to the consumer.
Introduction
The role of refrigeration in ensuring the safety and quality of meat, poultry, fish, vegetable
and fruit products has long formed the foundation of ensuring safety and preserving quality in
a well-run food industry. However, more recently the emphasis has changed to extending its
role in manufacturing prepared foods that are consumed often with little or no further
processing except reheating. This can be illustrated by the significant growth in sales of
prepared foods during the last decade in the United Kingdom (Table I). At one time, it was
usually assumed that meals would be prepared from raw, fresh ingredients by a housewife
in the home. Thus the first refrigerated prepared foods, such as frozen vegetables, were
fresh substitutes forming components of meals with the emphasis on convenience.
However, the frozen TV Dinner was still considered a poor substitute for the freshly-
prepared home-cooked meal. More recently, the mindset of the consumer has changed and so
the concept of eating a meal wholly manufactured outside the kitchen has become much more
acceptable. The reasons for this change can be observed in the rapidly evolving lifestyle,
found mostly in Western Society. These lifestyle changes influencing eating habits include
changes in the family structure, an increase in holiday travel abroad and the redistribution of
disposable income.

Table I. U.K. sales of various prepared foods ( million).

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Average
m m m m m m m increase
%/year
Chilled Ready 340 380 460 505 540 578e - 12.5
Meals
Frozen Ready 498 526 549 579 608 638e - 5.1
Meals
Meat 485 - 525 - 565e - - 3.9
Pies
Sandwiches - 1880 1995 2105 2250 2430 2675e 7.3

Pizza 315 350 397 452 512 599e - 13.7

Chilled Pot 267 298 358 403 453 506e - 12.9

Desserts a
Yoghurts 506 - 523 - 580 - - 3.5

a e
- including fromage frais - estimated values. Source: Mintel Reports 1997-1999.

2
Within the family structure, meal preparation was traditionally the prerogative of the
housewife caring for a husband and children, but as womens career opportunities and
employment levels have increased, the time available for food preparation has decreased and
so the need for convenience has increased. In the United Kingdom of 1960, women
comprised 34.5 % of the working population; by 1998, this had risen to 46.4 % (1, 2).
Households with the typical family group of two adults and one or two children have also
become less common in the United Kingdom; the proportion falling from 30 % of
households in 1961 to 19 % in 1998 (3). During the same period, the proportion of single
person households rose from 4 % to 14%, with the average household size declining from 3.1
to 2.4 (3). Thus more working women and decreasing average household size have
contributed to the breakdown of the family meal with family members eating at different
times or while occupied in other activities. This situation coincides with the wider
availability of snack foods, individual ready meals and increased use of the microwave oven
(4). Although behaviour may have changed, intentions have not; the proportion of those who
still believe it is important to eat together has increased from 38 % in 1994 to 51 % in 1996
(5). It is a matter of conjecture whether these intentions will ultimately reverse this trend in
meal pattern and hence the market for prepared foods. It has also been argued that the
development of convenience food is not because people want or like them but due to the
necessity to deal with constraints of the time available for those consumers needing to plan
their lives carefully (6).

Holiday travel abroad has also increased; in 1980 only 9% of adults took inclusive holidays
abroad; by 1996 this had risen to 23% (7). This has increased the demand for a wider range
of retail chilled prepared meals and also sustained the development of ethnic restaurants (8).
The affluent social classes who are most likely to travel abroad, class themselves as
adventurous compared to the less affluent groups who tend to be more traditional in their
outlook towards food (5).

In the United Kingdom, personal disposable income increased by 15 % in real terms between
1992 and 1997 (9) alongside an increase in the size of the combined Social Classes (SC) I &
II 1 from 7.4 m (17 % of the population) in 1980 to a forecast 10.9 m (23 %) in 2000 with a

1 SC I and II broadly comprise professional and managerial occupations respectively.

3
corresponding increase for the SC IIIN 2 from 9.9 m (22 %) to 13.6 m (28 %). This growth
in the size of the most affluent social classes who travel more and eat more adventurously,
would be likely to increase spending on eating away from home.

To summarise, a larger number of working women, a smaller average household size,

increased travelling abroad and a greater disposable income for the most affluent social
groups, have led to changes in meal patterns, a desire for more convenient foods and an
increased interest in ethnic foods. These consequences have resulted in the development by
the food industry of products such as ready meals, snack foods, pizzas and chilled desserts
which aim to provide the consumer with convenience, high quality, freshness, authenticity,
novelty, good taste (10). The impetus for developing many of these products has been to
provide in the home those meals that were usually available only in the restaurants or take-
away outlets. The recent use of the phrase home meal replacement reflects this (11).
However it should also be remembered that prepared foods also have a strong market in the
restaurant and institutional food service sector where costs are always under scrutiny and
out-sourcing can be financially beneficial (12, 13).

This chapter aims to highlight the essential role of refrigeration in manufacturing many of
these prepared foods and maintaining their safety and quality thereby ensuring the confidence
of the consumer. However, understanding consumer attitudes towards prepared foods and
the use of the time buffer concept will assist the food technologist in improving the quality of
prepared foods.

Importance of consumer attitudes and expectations.

Although scientists and engineers may look to new technologies to produce many new types
of prepared foods and enjoy conquering the consequent problems of practical application,
consumers may not have the same enthusiasm. They will be influenced by attitudes formed
over many years through their own experience and cultural background as well as the all-
pervading power of marketing and advertising on their expectations of the qualities of the
prepared foods (14). Work on attitudes towards military and institutional foods contrasted
the acceptability of prepared foods in different settings (15). It concluded that consumers

2 SC IIIN broadly comprises skilled non-manual occupations.

4
held strong negative attitudes about both the quality and acceptability of institutional foods,
perceive these foods as poorer in sensory quality due to negative media exposure with their
expectations influencing actual liking of the same food depending on the setting.

Consumers attitudes towards the use of technology applied to ready meals have also recently
been surveyed (Table II) (16). Using 188 respondents, the perceived acceptability of meals
prepared using newer methods of meal preparation (cook-chill, cook-freeze, sous vide,
dehydrated and a mixture of methods) was compared to the perceived acceptability of
conventionally prepared meals. For each respondent, the average of the five non-
conventional methods (Columns 2 to 6 in Table II) was expressed as a percentage of that
individuals rating for the conventional method (Column 1) to give a Technophobia Index
(Table II). Table II shows some significant differences (p<0.05) between mean values;
women considered dehydrated food as significantly less acceptable compared to men; the 20
to 24 age group found cook-chill food significantly more acceptable than the over 65 age
group and those in Social Class (SC) I thought sous vide preparation significantly more
acceptable than SC IIIM and cook-chill significantly more acceptable than SC II. There was
a tendency for the over 65 age group to perceive any method other than conventional
preparation as less acceptable and for the acceptability of new methods of meal preparation to
decline from SCI to IV.

One of the options shown in Table II, a mixture of methods, is probably closest to actual
foodservice and manufacturing practice but is still perceived by the consumer as less
acceptable than traditional methods. This method, if taken further, becomes the meal
assembly concept where meal components are brought together having been preserved by the
most suitable process for that component (17, 18).

Food technologists might reflect that despite all their care in developing new prepared foods
and putting in place the quality systems for maintaining quality and ensuring safety, the
attitudes of the consumer will be influenced by many additional factors beyond the
technologists control. These will ultimately determine the success or failure of that product
in the highly competitive retail market. However, the concept of the time buffer is essential
for understanding the role of refrigeration in manufacturing prepared foods.

5
Table II.
Mean values of perceived acceptability of six methods of meal preparation according to
gender, age group and Social Class (n = 188).
1 2 3 4 5 6 Techno-
Conven- Cook- Cook- Sous Dried Mixed phobia
tional freeze chill vide Index (%)
Gender Male 9.28 5.84 5.18 5.48 4.17a 4.79 56.48
Female 9.38 6.03 5.10 4.81 2.97b 4.43 50.05
Age up to 19 9.14 5.43 5.29 3.55 2.88 3.48 45.70
Group
20-24 9.03 6.42 6.81a 5.68 4.07 5.97 65.29
25-34 9.03 5.97 5.25 4.89 3.65 4.87 56.03
35-44 9.57 6.60 5.77 5.54 3.34 4.77 55.23
45-54 9.17 5.66 4.43 5.13 3.81 4.43 52.18
55-64 9.74 6.01 5.19 5.72 4.75 5.10 55.49
over 65 9.72 4.31 2.67b 4.59 1.73 2.69 34.14
Social I 9.34 6.41 6.25a 6.26a 4.36 5.46 62.37
Class
II 9.35 5.44 4.25b 4.82 3.93 4.46 50.44
IIIN 9.27 6.47 4.52 4.92 2.89 4.40 44.26
IIIM 9.19 4.73 3.81 3.94b 3.43 3.83 51.56
IV 9.16 5.65 5.21 4.00 2.08 3.31 44.70

For columns 1 to 6, 0 = Totally unacceptable, 10 = Totally acceptable. (Means in the same

column within the same box bearing subscripts with different letters are significantly
different, p<0.05). Source: Creed (1998) (16)

Time buffer
The first recorded use of refrigeration for preserving food has been reported as Francis Bacon
stuffing a chicken with snow in 1626 (19). The more sophisticated and recent developments
in refrigeration since then have been comprehensively covered in earlier chapters. However,
the purpose of refrigeration still remains the same: to provide a period of preservation which
will allow the food to be stored, processed, distributed, displayed, sold and consumed at more
convenient times for all those in the supply chain while ensuring safety and maintaining
quality. This period is known as the time buffer (Figure 1) or the shelf life depending on
whether the interest is from the systems or from the scientific point of view.

Cleaning, Heat Time Service and

Preparation, treatment buffer consumption
etc.

Figure 1. System with time buffer

6
The time buffer concept has been used for several years in the foodservice industry where its
introduction (usually in the form of cooling or freezing) between the cooking and service
stages, can help to solve many of the problems of inflexibility inherent in the cook-serve
system (Figure 2). In theory, this leads to many advantages for the foodservice operator and
consumer (Table III). In this case, management of the entire process from food preparation to
consumption can often be under the control of a single foodservice organisation. In contrast,
when prepared foods pass through the supply chain from manufacturer via the retailer to the
domestic consumer, the number of links in the time buffer is greater and hence the level of
control can be much lower unless strict monitoring processes are implemented. In this case,
the time buffer begins with the manufacturing preservation process and continues through
storage, distribution possibly through a wholesaler to the retailer and will conclude with
storage and display before eventual purchase by the consumer and storage in the home. The
advantages for the manufacturer, retailer and consumer are slightly different (Table IV).

Cleaning, Heat Service and

Preparation, treatment consumption
etc.

Figure 2. Traditional cook-serve system

Table III. Advantages of a time buffer in foodservice.

For the Staff can work normal hours without peaks of activity at meal times.
foodservice Staff can work more efficiently with planned production.
operator Staff with less skill can be employed to reheat and serve food in satellite kitchens.
Less equipment can be used for longer periods for the same output of meals.
Food production can be centralised to avoid duplicating equipment and skilled
labour in a large number of small kitchens.
Energy can be used more efficiently in heating equipment by minimising the number
of warming-up times.
Portion sizes can be more accurately controlled.
Economies of scale can cut food costs.
Meals can be reheated when required leading to less food wastage.
For the consumer Wider range of meals is available.
Meals are available when required.
Meal quality is more consistent.

7
Table IV. Advantages of a time buffer in the manufacturing-retailer-consumer chain.
For the Staff can work normal hours with only seasonal peaks of activity.
manufacturer Staff can work more efficiently with planned production.
Economies of scale can cut food costs.
Less equipment can be used for longer periods for the same output.
Food production can be centralised to avoid duplicating equipment and skilled
labour in a large number of smaller units.
Energy can be used more efficiently in heating equipment by minimising the number
of warming-up times.
For the retailer Predictable shelf-life gives consistency of supply.
Wider range of prepared foods is available for display.
Prepared foods attract a price premium for added convenience.
For the consumer Wider range of prepared foods is available.
Meals are available when required.
Less skill is needed to reheat and serve food at home.

Refrigeration is probably the most widely-used of the many hurdles which prevent or
control microbiological growth (20) alongside older methods such as canning and
dehydration. More recently emerging technologies such as high-pressure processing,
irradiation and high voltage pulses have been developed but they must still be combined with
refrigeration for practical application (21). For small food manufacturing operations or
foodservice, prepared foods will be cooled or frozen in batches using air blast or immersion.
For high volume manufacture of prepared foods for retail sale, continuous methods such as
spiral chillers and freezers, immersion chilling and cryogenic freezing/chilling as outlined in
earlier chapters will be used.

Using a range of examples, the next sections will illustrate how refrigeration is at the heart of
the food technologists responsibility to maintain the quality and ensure the safety of prepared
foods.

Ready meals
This first example of prepared consumer foods is manufactured in frozen, chilled or ambient
stable forms. In the United Kingdom the range of ready meals available for the consumer to
purchase from retailers is extensive. It includes traditional dishes imitating home-prepared
meals, healthy meals and dishes intended to imitate restaurant meals (22). The latter can
vary from classic French and Italian cuisine to many ethnic cuisines which remind consumers
of meals eaten on holiday. Thus the range of meals now available has shown a progression
from the manufacture of main meal components such as fish fingers, chicken kievs, breaded

8
fish portions etc. to these complete meals requiring reheating 3 in the home. The popularity
of the most recent entrant to the ready meal market, chilled, is increasing rapidly and sales in
the United Kingdom are predicted in value terms to reach sales of frozen ready meals by
2003 (23) although manufacturers of frozen meals are trying to halt the decline (24). The
main proportion of the chilled sector of the market (94% in 1996; 97.7% in 1998) consists of
supermarket own brands (private label) where the rapid turnover overcomes problems of
short shelf life (25, 12). In contrast, frozen and ambient ready meals tend to be branded
products sold more in the smaller independent stores where turnover can be much lower and
a longer shelf life is required (26).

Ready meals for retail

Some manufacturing processes for chilled and frozen ready meals are shown in Figures 3 to 7
although there will be variants to these basic patterns (27). Figure 3 illustrates the large-scale
production of chilled ready meals on a semi-continuous method with large batches of product
or product component being cooked in a kettle according to a predefined heat treatment for
the recipe. This is followed by continuous rapid cooling through tubes cooled by liquid
nitrogen into refrigerated storage vessels from which depositors can be filled for the assembly
of meals on a production line with consequent chilled storage and distribution. In this case,
the cooling method limits the type of food to particulate products with suitable flow
properties. Figure 4 shows a diagram for a system where the food is portioned and packed
immediately after cooking while hot, then cooled rapidly before chilled storage and
distribution. Frozen meals would be manufactured in a similar manner to chilled ready meals
except for rapid freezing and storage, etc. following the packing stages in Figures 3 and 4.
Frozen ready meals manufactured under GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) should be
cooled to 18C at a rate suitable for the particular food (28).

The difference between the manufacturing processes for chilled and frozen ready meals is
becoming less distinct. In the United Kingdom, the distances between manufacturer and
customer enable the reliable distribution of chilled meals to retailers but in the United States,
distances are often too great for similar logistics (29). Thus sous vide foods, for example,
normally considered as chilled foods, have been frozen to allow safe distribution and so allay

3 Also known as regeneration or rethermalization in foodservice.

9
consumer and client fears (30). Another example reports how Chinese entres are assembled,
packed under modified atmosphere (MAP), frozen and distributed. The supermarket then
thaws the product for display with the modified atmosphere providing a shelf life of up to 7
days (31). MAP has also been suggested as a way of extending the shelf life of chilled ready
meal, a survey in 1997 showing that 3 out of 20 tested had used this treatment (32).

Depositing
Cleaning, Rapid packing, Chilled
preparation cooling etc. distribution

Heat Bulk Chilled Retail

treatment chilled storage display
storage

Figure 3. Manufacture of chilled meals on a semi-continuous basis, packing chilled.

Depositing
Cleaning, packing, Chilled Retail
preparation etc. storage display

Heat Rapid Chilled

treatment cooling distribution

Figure 4. Manufacture of chilled meals on a semi-continuous basis, packing hot.

Ready meals for foodservice

In the previous examples of the manufacture of chilled and frozen meals, the product would
mostly consist of packs suitable for 1 or 2 servings but for foodservice use, larger multi-
portion quantities are also required for providing meals on a large-scale in institutional
settings. Some early efforts to incorporate a time buffer for foodservice used the cook-freeze
system (Figure 5) (33). Later, cook-chill systems (Figure 6) were promoted by manufacturers
of large-scale cooking and refrigeration equipment working with the electricity industry (34)
at a time when foodservice operators were becoming more aware of the need to economise on
energy and labour costs (35). Similarly for the sous vide process (Figure 7), manufacturers of
specialised equipment for vacuum packing, cooking, cooling, chilled storage, reheating and
heat-resistant packaging materials have co-operated in creating complete systems. The sous
vide process has a reputation for higher quality which relies on vacuum packing raw food

10
materials before low temperature cooking and rapid cooling (36). However, unlike cook-
freeze and cook-chill systems, which use scaled-up traditional methods for food preparation,
higher standards are required for sous vide ready meal manufacture. This is due to the
anaerobic conditions in the vacuum-packed food leading to a greater risk of the growth of
pathogenic bacteria if temperature-abused so these products have been produced mostly in
highly controlled industrial environments for supply to foodservice operators (37, 38).

Frozen
Cleaning, Portioning, Frozen storage at
preparation packing storage end kitchen

Heat Rapid Frozen Reheating

treatment freezing distribution for service

Figure 5. Manufacture of frozen meals in a cook-freeze foodservice system.

Chilled
Cleaning, Portioning, Chilled storage at
preparation packing storage end kitchen

Heat Rapid Chilled Reheating

treatment cooling distribution for service

Figure 6. Manufacture of chilled meals in a cook-chill foodservice system.

Chilled
Cleaning, Heat Chilled storage at
preparation treatment storage end kitchen

Portioning, Rapid Chilled Reheating

vacuum cooling distribution for service
packing

Figure 7. Manufacture of sous vide cook chill meals.

Three other foodservice systems have used chilling and chilled storage as the time buffer. In
the Swedish Nacka system for hospital feeding, food was cooked conventionally followed by
vacuum packing and a second heat treatment using immersion of the packs in boiling water
for a time depending on the perception of the microbiological risk (39). The second

11
example, the American AGS system, also for hospital feeding, was an early form of sous vide
(40). Raw or part-cooked foods were assembled, vacuum packed in pouches before
pasteurisation in water baths, then cooled in iced water before refrigerated storage.
Reheating the pouches in a water bath or plated meals in a microwave ensured hot food for
the patients. The third example, the CapKold bulk production system came in two forms (41,
42). The cook-in-bag approach, similar to sous vide, was used for cooking large vacuum-
packed meat joints or roasts in water followed by rapid water cooling in the same vessel.
The other form cooked the ingredients in a computer-controlled kettle followed by filling into
large plastic casings which could be sealed to allow rapid cooling to 4C in 45 minutes by
tumbling in chilled water at 2C. Many authors provide reviews of these systems (43, 44,
45).

The difference between the manufacturing processes for chilled ready meals for retail and
foodservice use is also becoming less distinct. Manufacturers have supplied frozen ready
meals to foodservice operators and both chilled and frozen ready meals to retailers for many
years but more recently the HMR (Home Meal Replacement) market is growing rapidly as
retailers try to expand the more profitable chilled food market. In some cases, retailers have
set up their own manufacturing operation to supply their own restaurants or retail outlets
while retaining control over quality and consistency (46, 11). Like CapKold (41,42), food is
prepared, cooked, pumped into casings and tumble-chilled in water to give chilled products
with extended storage life. However, there are many different approaches to HMR,
depending on whether manufacturing is in-store, centralised within the organisation or to a
third party, out-sourced or run as a joint venture (13, 46).

Cooling after cooking

The main challenge for food technologists and engineers is to design and provide
refrigeration conditions which will ensure that ready meals and other cooked prepared foods
such as pies or pizzas, are cooled rapidly after heat treatment to prevent multiplication of any
bacterial spores which may remain. Further cooling to 3C is needed for chilled storage to
prevent growth of spoilage and pathogenic bacteria. GMP guidelines (28) advise that heated
product should be cooled between 63 and 5C in not more than 4 hours depending on the
type of food but this process can be more demanding subject to the status of the ingredients

12
and heating conditions (27). For example, in the United Kingdom, the Department of Health
Guidelines (47) for cook-chill foods recommend that:-
packs or meat joints should be no more than 2.5 kg in weight and 100 mm thick.
cooling should start within 30 minutes of completing cooking, allowing time for
portioning (Figure 6).
packs up to 50 mm in depth should reach 3C within 90 minutes.
packs up to 100 mm in depth should reach 10C within 150 minutes.
packs should be stored between 0 and 3C after cooling.
the maximum shelf life should be 5 days including the days of production and
consumption.
These requirements are more onerous than many other European states that permit longer a
cooling time (48). It would also be necessary to avoid freezing the surface of the food during
cooling and to ensure that all packs in an air blast or immersion chiller are exposed to the
designed heat transfer coefficient to achieve the required cooling times when the chiller is
fully loaded.

These criteria taken together produce the challenge mentioned above. Research using
experimental data combined with predictive modelling has investigated cooling of cook-chill
foods in moving air and by immersion (49, 48). In both cases, only 10 mm thick food packs
could be cooled to 3C within 90 minutes without surface freezing. Using immersion and
packs oriented vertically, 40 mm thick packs could be cooled to 3C within 90 minutes and
packs up to 66 mm cooled to 10C in 150 minutes. The investigators suggested the use of
heat pipes, thermosyphons, etc., vacuum packing the food or a greater level of agitation
during immersion cooling to increase the overall heat transfer coefficient to enable the
Department of Health Guidelines to be met (48). Sous vide processed meals are packed
mostly in flexible pouches so the size of pouch can be increased to hold larger amounts of
product while still keeping the pack thickness relatively small. The pouches are suitable for
immersion cooling in chilled water with experiments showing that cooling times of 90
minutes are feasible (50).

13
Chilled and frozen convenience snack products
This sector of the prepared food market is very varied, comprising a wide range of food
products from baked products such as pies and pasties to filled bread products such as
sandwiches, rolls and subs. The changes in lifestyle mentioned earlier also include the need
for many consumers to eat while travelling, working or relaxing when there is no time or no
desire to prepare a cooked meal using fresh raw ingredients or a ready meal. One of the
oldest snack foods, the meat pie, has shown a relatively slow rate of growth in sales
compared to the sandwich over recent years (Table I).

Meat pies
Manufacturing methods for pies follow traditional baking methods. The production of meat
pies, such as minced beef, steak and kidney or steak, follow the process of preparing, cooking
or part-cooking and cooling the filling then depositing a given weight onto a pastry base
formed in an aluminium foil dish (51). After adding a pastry lid, the pies are glazed, baked,
cooled by air blast chillers or possibly more rapidly by vacuum cooling (52), wrapped, boxed
and placed in chilled storage before distribution. During cooking, the outer pastry surface
will lose moisture so that browning reactions caused by Maillard reactions assisted by the
glazing will take place (53). In contrast, on the inner surface of the pastry next to the filling,
the temperature will not rise above 100C due to the presence of water thus allowing the
starch to gelatinise causing the familiar soft texture. For other types of pie, the filling is
cooked during baking; for example, when making pasties, the filling of raw diced vegetables
and meat is placed on the pastry which is folded over, sealed and crimped, followed by
baking, etc. The filling of pork pies is also cooked during baking. However, an essential part
of pork pie production is to inject the baked pie through a hole in the lid with melted gelatine
solution (Figure 8) (54, 55). The gelatine fills the gap between the meat filling and the pastry
case caused by shrinkage of the meat during baking. The injection of gelatine can only take
place after the pork pies have cooled to around 20C, otherwise the pastry will absorb the
gelatine and cause leakages. After injection, air blast cooling reduces the internal
temperature to below 5C before wrapping in parchment paper or flow wrapping, packing in
boxes and chilled storage. Investigations on the relationship between air velocity and cooling
time from 55 - 60C to 5C for 400g pork pies in air blast chillers at 1.5C gave times of
2.25, 2.5, 3.5 and 5 hours for air velocities over the pies of 10, 6, 1 and 0.5 m/s respectively

14
(56). It was concluded that for large manufacturers, the increased throughput using higher air
velocities could justify the extra capital and running costs of larger fans.

Frozen meat Chilled meat Pastry

preparation

Frozen storage Chilled storage

Thawing
Forming pie Forming
casings in lids
metal rings
Preparation
(trimming, Gelatine
mincing) preparation

Mixing Assembly, Cooling Injecting Cooling

glazing to 20C jelly to 5C

Seasoning, Baking Wrapping,

rusk, water labelling
Chilled storage
& packing

Chilled Chilled retail

distribution display

Figure 8. Manufacture of pork pies. Adapted from Hayes (1985) (54).

Like many mass-produced foods, pies are often cooled on-line using spiral chillers to achieve
the economies of continuous large-scale production. As pies are wrapped and boxed after
cooling assuming that the internal temperature is in the range 1 to 5C for chilled storage,
any products that fail to reach this temperature due to receiving inadequate cooling will cause
problems. Moisture from warm pies may be trapped in the wrapping leading to spoilage and
sometimes vivid discoloration. This may only become apparent when the retailer opens the
boxes of pies. In one case where this happened, the pies had failed to cool sufficiently due to
baffles in the spiral chiller being misplaced after maintenance which caused lower air flow
over the pies and hence a lower rate of heat transfer. For large pies intended for slicing, such
as gala pies which contain whole eggs within a pork pie mix, the greater critical dimensions
(around 10 cm thick) mean that cooling times can be much longer than for individual pies
(around 4 to 5cm thick).

15
Sandwiches
Sales of sandwiches in the United Kingdom (Table I) are much greater than many other
prepared foods and are growing rapidly. As these products are produced for consumption
from high risk ingredients with no further processing, the chilled shelf life is usually limited
to production plus 2 days (57). Codes of practice for cooked products are therefore not
stringent enough so this sector of the United Kingdom food industry has set up an association
to audit producers and provide guidelines for hygiene standards (57). Sandwiches can be
assembled from a very wide range of ingredients; cooked meats, seafood, salad vegetables,
dairy products, fruit, nuts, etc. Therefore the interactions between these components and the
bread can limit the shelf life due to moisture migration causing for example soggy bread,
watery mayonnaise or limp lettuce as well as the usual problems caused by bread staling (58).
Control of these effects can be achieved by ensuring the bread is evenly covered with a layer
of butter or spread to provide a moisture barrier, by careful consideration of which foods are
placed next to each other and removing excess moisture from salad materials after washing.
An example of the manufacture of a meat and salad sandwich (Figure 9) gives some idea of
the number of complex operations needing to be performed rapidly by the manufacturer so
that the retailer is allowed a reasonable shelf life for sale to the consumer. The amount of
automation during the process will depend on the scale of production but equipment is
available; for example, for bringing two bread slices together (59) or for depositing known
quantities of filling (60, 51). This can minimise the extent of handling by humans and
therefore the risk of contamination but many sandwich manufacturers are relatively small so
manual assembly is the usual method.

Ensuring that sandwiches are maintained at chill temperatures during assembly is essential
because the packaging and the dimensions can limit the later removal of heat during storage,
distribution or retail display. Sandwiches are usually packed into triangular plastic (PVC)
containers (tents or wedges) which are 4 to 6cm thick. These containers are then closely
packed into large trays (with an effective thickness of 13 cm) for distribution so any increase
in the temperature of the sandwiches caused by poor handling would be impossible to
reverse. Variations on the sandwich theme include rolls, baguettes, subs, wraps (tortillas
with filling), filled pita breads, etc. some of which can be up to 7 or 8 cm thick. This may
also mean that cooling after assembly is not feasible. For specialised foodservice outlets, the
sandwich bars, the point of production may be much closer than for a supermarket retailer.

16
 Frozen meat

Frozen storage

Salad
Thawing vegetables

Cooking Chilled storage

Sliced bread Cooling to 5C Washing/drying

Buttered Slicing Slicing

Assembly
Chilled
distribution
Labelling

Wrapping/ Chilled retail

packing Chilled storage display

Figure 9. Manufacture of a sliced meat and salad sandwich.

This allows the range of sandwiches on offer to be greater with the period between
production and sale cut down to a minimum to avoid any problems of quality (61). These
outlets offer premium products to office workers with the opportunity to assemble
sandwiches to their individual taste (62).

The problems of the wide range of ingredients, the necessarily rapid logistics and potential
risks from poor handling of a ready-to-eat product lead to the quote that if you can cope with
the sandwich industry, you can cope with anything. (58).

Chilled and frozen pizza products

Pizza has shown the greatest annual rate of growth in sales in the United Kingdom of the
various prepared foods discussed in this chapter (Table I). The range of chilled or frozen
pizza products vary from the traditional round pizzas to smaller individual pizzas, pizza
slices, those using French bread as a base and rectangular versions suitable for rapid
microwave reheating. Pizza originated in Italy as a flattened round of bread dough topped

17
with olive oil, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese (made from buffalo milk), baked quickly and
served hot (63). Its popularity in many countries probably comes from its development as an
early fast food in the United States where the range of additions to the original recipe was
extended to typically sausage, bacon, or ground beef, mushrooms, peppers and shrimps.
Typically, a pizza consists of 55% crust by weight, 10 to 15% topping, the most expensive
item, with the sauce constituting 35 to 30% (64).

Development technologists have concentrated mostly on methods of mass-producing frozen

or chilled pizzas which can match the quality of the freshly baked version from a pizzeria.
This includes devising a rising dough where an uncooked frozen pizza starts cooking in a
cold oven thus allowing yeast enough time to raise the dough to give a better freshly-baked
quality (65). Other factors studied include flour properties which affect the doughs ability to
be formed using high speed manufacturing equipment or to rise during baking; the effect of
additives on dough structure and volume; sauce thickness and melting characteristics of
mozzarella cheese or other cheese blends (64).

A manufacturing process for frozen pizza is shown in Figure 10 (64). The docking step
consists of punching holes in the rolled dough to prevent blistering during baking; the multi-
stage cooking can take place in conveyorised air impingement ovens to produce the par-
baked crust followed by cooling to ambient temperature. The addition of cheese and topping
takes place under refrigerated conditions before the water misting step which holds down the
cheese and toppings before freezing. During frozen storage, moisture can migrate from the
sauce to the relatively dry crust producing an unsatisfactory texture on reheating. One
suggested solution for a French bread pizza has been to use an edible film inserted between
the pizza base and the sauce. Even after poor frozen storage at 7C for 9 weeks, the sensory
quality of the pizza was still satisfactory after baking (66).

Chilled pizzas are manufactured in a similar manner but have a shorter shelf life than frozen
although up to 45 days is claimed if gas flushing or vacuum packing is used (67). The shelf
life of three types of chilled pizza (plain, mushroom and ham) has been predicted for
different criteria e.g. time for bacterial colony growth, fermented odour, etc. (68). These
values increased with storage temperature from around 5 to 6 days at 15C for all three types
to 21 days for plain and mushroom and 10 days for ham at 2C using the criterion of the onset

18
of a fruity/fermented odour. Like the frozen versions, chilled pizzas have a par-baked crust
which is fully cooked by the consumer on heating before consumption.

Flour, water, Resting Docking

oil, salt, yeast

Rolling into
Dough mixer sheets

Adding sauce, Multi-stage

cheese, topping baking

Water misting Cooling Cutting to shape

Freezing,
cryogenic or
spiral
Frozen
distribution
Labelling

Over-
wrapping/ Frozen retail
packing Frozen storage display

Figure 10. Manufacture of frozen pizza. Adapted from Burg (1998) (64).

A foodservice process for freshly-baked pizzas would be simpler with refrigerated dough
portions being prepared centrally and transported to restaurant outlets where they can be
hand-tossed before baking, sometimes in traditional stone ovens and serving hot to the
consumer (69).

In general, the shelf life of pizzas whether frozen or chilled is long enough under controlled
refrigerated conditions for safe distribution, retail sale and handling by the consumer.

Chilled desserts
Chilled desserts can be classified into yoghurts, fromage frais and desserts with each type
being manufactured in many forms according to how fruit flavour is incorporated, the visual
structure, level of fat or separation of components in packaging, etc. (Figure 11) (70). In

19
addition, these foods can be aimed at the childrens market by incorporating television
characters or for use as a baby food (71). Consumers of branded chocolate confectionery are
susceptible to the dessert versions (72), healthy eaters to low fat or health giving ingredients
and the ethical consumer to organic desserts. Another area, ethnic desserts, such as tiramisu,
crme brle, profiteroles, tartufo, etc., exploits the consumers interest in restaurant-style
desserts. The popularity of different desserts varies across Europe with some traditional
recipes popular in just one country (73). Many new recipes emerge from the new food
product development technologists and marketers to exploit this fast-growing sector. Two
contradictory trends have been noted; indulgence versus health with the consumers craving
for chocolate competing with better for you low-fat products (71).

Plain

Traditional Very low fat

Set Flavoured

Low fat
Fruit layer

High fat Stirred

Bio Fruited
(whole milk)

Separate
fruit

Plain Simple
Very low fat Custards
Jellies
Layered Rice puddings
Low fat Blancmange

Aerated
Layered
Medium fat Trifles Fruited
Cheesecakes
Fruited Crumbles
High fat
Separate Aerated
fruit Syllabubs
Mousses
Fools

Figure 11. Classification of yogurts, fromage frais and desserts. Adapted from Lewis and

Dale 1994 (70).

20
Table I shows that sales growth in United Kingdom between 1993 and 1998 for chilled
desserts other than yoghurt has been greater at 12.9 % p.a. (74) than for yoghurts at 3.5 % p.a.
(75). The corresponding world sales growth figures between 1992 and 1996 were 8.1 % p.a.
for chilled desserts other than yoghurt and 10.0 % p.a. for yoghurts (71). Yoghurts have
formed the much larger market with world sales comprising 69% of total sales of all chilled
desserts in 1996 and in the United Kingdom an estimated 55% in 1998.

Typical manufacturing process diagrams show the major role of refrigeration in the
manufacture of chilled desserts; yoghurts (Figure 12), fromage frais (Figure 13) and trifle
(Figure 14) (70, 55).

Set yogurt

Flavour Fill into Cooling to

pots below 5C Despatch

Heat treated &

homogenised yogurt Incubation at Chilled
mix (water, sugar, 40-42C storage
skim milk, cream)
+ cultures

Incubation at Chilled Fill into

40-42C storage pots Despatch

Heat treated &

homogenised yogurt Add pasteurised
Cooling to fruit pure, Cooling to
mix (water, sugar, 15-20C below 5C
skim milk, cream) sterilised nut
+ cultures pure

Stirred yogurt

Figure 12. Manufacture of set and stirred yogurt. Adapted from Lewis and Dale (1994)

(70), Shapton and Shapton (1991) (55).

21
In yogurt production, cooling is essential when the culture (typically Lactobacillus
delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus salivarius ssp. Thermophilus) has incubated to
produce the desired acidity value (76). At a temperature of 40 to 42C, incubation takes
around 4 hours. For stirred yogurts (Swiss-style), the temperature is lowered to below 20C
for storage before the addition of fruit, filling into pots and further cooling before chilled
storage and distribution. For set yogurts (Sundae-style), where fermentation occurs in the
pot, only one cooling stage to below 5C is needed. For manufacturing fromage frais, a lower
incubation temperature than that for yogurt is used for the mesophilic lactic acid bacteria used
required by the process. Production of layered desserts is essentially an assembly process
with various ingredients being heat treated and cooled before being deposited in turn into
containers on a production line, sealed, packed and distributed.

Blend with Adding Chilled

Incubation cream fruit storage

Heat treated mix Separation Cooling Fill into Despatch

(Concentrated of plain pots
skim milk, curd
cream)
+ cultures

Figure 13. Manufacture of fromage frais. Adapted from Lewis and Dale 1994 (70).
Water + gelatine
mixed, Cream, Pasteurised,
Heat treated, Cooled, Cooled, Whipped
Flavoured

Add jelly Cooling Add cream Cooling

Add Add fruit Add Add Chilled

sponge custard decoration storage

Fruit + flavour Milk + starch, Cherries, Despatch

+ stabiliser Colour + Nuts,
Mixed, flavour Mixed, Chocolate,
Heat treated, Heat treated, Candy, etc.
Cooled Cooled

Figure 14. Manufacture of trifle a layered product. Adapted from Lewis and Dale 1994

(70).

22
For chilled dessert production, maintaining the cold chain is vital for maintaining quality and
safety up to retail display. These products can contain jelly, cream and other dairy-based
products that are ideal for the growth of pathogenic organisms.

Safety and quality

For both foodservice use and in the home, the advantages of using manufactured prepared
foods (Tables III and IV) depend on reliable methods of preservation and distribution during
the time buffer which cause a minimal effect on the foods microbiological, sensory and
nutritional qualities. Several factors are essential to ensure the safety and quality of prepared
foods in feeding systems incorporating a time buffer:-
The microbial load of the raw material inputs must be low as any heat processing may
only eliminates a proportion of the microorganisms originally present.
Safety problems arising from the potential for growth of pathogenic and spoilage
microorganisms must be minimised.
Sensory problems caused by colour and texture changes, separation of food
components, drying out, rancidity and development of off-flavours must be
minimised.
Any reduction in nutritional levels during processing, storage and reheating especially
for the heat-labile B group vitamins must be minimised.
Any reheating process must be carefully designed to avoid deterioration in sensory
qualities by considering the likely behaviour of the end-users whether foodservice
personnel or domestic consumers.
Ready-to-eat foods such as chilled desserts and sandwiches are particularly vulnerable
to problems caused by any contamination by micro-organisms growing through
temperature abuse, so secure packaging and a secure cold chain are essential
requirements.

The four previous sections on ready meals, snack convenience foods, pizzas and chilled
desserts serve to illustrate the central role of refrigeration in their manufacture. Cooling,
freezing and chilled or frozen storage have become essential operations to help maintain
safety and quality during the time buffer while these foods are being processed, assembled,
stored and distributed.

23
Safety and quality during manufacture
Information on techniques for ensuring the manufacture of safe prepared foods such as GMP
(28), HACCP (55), etc. incorporated into quality management systems is well documented
and easily available. However, bearing in mind the possible maltreatment of foods by the
consumer, the responsibility of the manufacturer to ensure safety and quality during their part
of the cold chain becomes crucial. Indeed, it has been suggested that the consumer should
only be trusted to reheat prepared food for culinary reasons so that any prior heat treatment
and steps to eliminate the risk of later contamination during the cold chain should be
sufficient to take this into account (77).

The vulnerability of the food industry to consumer food scares naturally puts the emphasis
during the manufacturing stage on ensuring food safety using the techniques mentioned
above but at the marketing and advertising stage this emphasis appears to shift towards the
sensory and nutritional qualities of the products. Thus the manufacturer has to find a
compromise between the sensory and nutritional qualities of foods such as ready meals, pies
and pizzas and the heat treatments which ensure their microbiological safety. For many
foods preserved using long-established methods such as canning or dehydration, the
consumer has become accustomed to their altered sensory qualities. For example, the
sensory qualities of canned peas, carrots or peaches are very different from their fresh
counterparts yet the processed products are still purchased, enjoyed and valued by the
consumer. Figure 15 illustrates the concept of how the compromise mentioned above can be
viewed for the manufacturer of sous vide ready meals (78, 79) but the same idea can be
applied to most prepared foods.

Other chapters cover the prediction of cooling and freezing times and modelling of air flow
during refrigeration processes that allow the manufacturer to optimise the whole production
process. However, with advances in predictive microbiology and a better understanding of
quality deterioration with temperature and time, computer software has been developed to
predict how the safety and quality of potential new food products may change during
processing and the cold chain (80). For example, knowing the product composition will
enable its thermal properties to be predicted and with process variables and product
dimensions can predict the heating or cooling curve. If the growth characteristics of micro-
organisms of particular interest are known, a prediction of their numbers can be made over

24
time. Knowledge of reaction kinetics associated with textural change can enable a similar
prediction of quality changes to be made.

Figure 15. Optimising heat treatment for sensory quality and food safety in sous vide processed

foods. (A - high sensory quality/medium safety, B - medium sensory quality/high safety, C -

optimum high sensory quality/high safety). Adapted from Barlet (1991) (78) and Langley-Danysz

(1992) (79).

Assembly of high-risk food components during the manufacture of prepared consumer foods
also entails very high standards of hygiene and management. If this takes place in a low
ambient temperature, at the recommended 8C, personnel need special clothing as the
necessary air movement to provide a controlled temperature can make working conditions
uncomfortable. Solutions to overcome this have included the use of air socks to distribute
large volumes of air at low air velocities or more recently to use localised cooling.
Refrigerated assembly tables for sandwich production or production lines fitted with built-in
cooling are becoming available as another option for the localised cooling of food.

Safety and quality during distribution and retailing

In the United Kingdom, refrigerated distribution of foods has developed into a reliable
system ensuring continuous supply of food over the whole country due to sophisticated
logistics, monitoring equipment and vehicles combined with the relatively small distances
between suppliers and retailers. Transport vehicles can be subdivided so that ambient,

25
chilled and frozen foods can be distributed simultaneously (81). Data-loggers can easily
monitor temperatures and door opening events and times throughout the cold chain to
provide records and comply with due diligence requirements of quality management
schemes. For bulk distribution, there may be just one delivery but for smaller refrigerated
vehicles, there will be many deliveries of chilled or frozen food to several different retailers.
Depending on the number of stops and the prevailing ambient conditions, by the end of the
last delivery, temperature conditions in the vehicle and hence the food temperatures may be
too high. Again, software has been developed to model the situation and predict the rise in
temperature according to journey details, weather conditions, food type, van construction and
type of refrigeration system (82). As noted in other chapters, time-temperature integrators
can be attached to packs of high-risk foods to provide reassurance to retailers and consumers
that temperature abuse has not occurred.

At the retailer, conditions of storage and display also need to be monitored carefully to
maintain the required temperatures to achieve the expected high quality shelf life. This calls
for all retail food handlers to be trained to understand their responsibilities and how their
individual actions can affect the safety and quality of the foods and so the service offered to
the consumer. These actions start at handling methods from the point of delivery through to
storage and display and include the retail workers competence at monitoring food and
refrigeration equipment temperatures and checking stock rotation.

Safety and quality during final use with the consumer

In prepared food systems, reheating products such as ready meals, pies or pizzas is the final
link that often determines the acceptability of the prepared food to the consumer. This
process will not only happen in the home but also in factories, offices and garage shops
where microwave ovens are provided for reheating foods from vending machines or chilled
display cabinets. The logistics of the chilled distribution are well established in the United
Kingdom but when the consumer purchases chilled or frozen products, temperature abuse can
often start with the journey home from the retailer. Investigations on this part of the cold
chain show that product temperatures can rise to 38C during a one hour journey in the hot
interior of a car with ambient air temperatures of 23 to 27C (83). In addition, when the food
arrives at the home, the performance of domestic refrigerators may also be insufficient to
maintain safe storage conditions for chilled foods (84).

26
In line with the changes in lifestyle discussed earlier which have led to the growth in prepared
consumer foods, the reheating step has also become rapid using a microwave oven to increase
the convenience factor even more. Doubts about the ability of all domestic microwave ovens
to reheat chilled foods sufficiently to a food temperature of 70C for 2 minutes to destroy
Listeria monocytogenes led to comprehensive research in this area (85). This research
continued with the co-operation with food manufacturers to provide much improved
consumer information on food packages on the necessary reheating times for individual
recipe dishes in ovens with different power outputs.

Conclusions
The expanding market for prepared consumer foods will continue to lead to many new food
products from the food development technologists which incorporate more convenience for
the consumer. Whether in the light of modern production methods such as genetically
modified food components or the increasing popularity of organic foods, this expansion will
continue depends on consumer attitudes and demands.

Certainly, consumers still need to be provided with information at the right level to ensure
that they can deal with the widening range of storage or cooking treatments required for many
prepared foods. The greater use of convenience foods has accompanied a declining
knowledge of food preparation from raw materials and the precautions needed to avoid cross-
contamination as practised by earlier generations. This lack of knowledge may be one reason
why the apparent deadliness of all micro-organisms is used by marketers to sell kitchen
cleaning products thereby exploiting consumers ignorance and misapprehensions. As new
technologies for preserving food become available alongside the familiar refrigeration
processes of chilled and frozen domestic storage, the need for education will become even
stronger. Both the manufacturing and retail sectors of the food industry are well set up to
cope with the various food scares by improving their quality management schemes.
However, it is often illogical failures in human actions or complacent behaviour that lead to
problems in food safety and quality. The emphasis must therefore focus on educating the end
consumer and to some extent the retail food handler to appreciate the links between their
treatment and handling of prepared foods and the risk of food spoilage, wastage and possibly
human illness. This education will centre to a large extent on how refrigeration can play its
part in assuring the safety and quality of prepared foods for consumers.

27
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Additional sources used in Table I.

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Mintel International Group Ltd. Chilled Ready Meals. London; Mintel; May 1998.
Mintel International Group Ltd. Pizza. London; Mintel. August 1998.
Mintel International Group Ltd. Sandwiches. London; Mintel; November 1999.

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