Cold room: Module 1 – Introduction

Overview

 About a cold room.

 About HACCP and its principles.
 About the factors affecting food quality.
 How to maintain food quality.
 Cold room components.
 Cold room construction details.
What is a cold room?
A cold room is a refrigerated room used to store perishable foods to prevent
them from getting damaged.

Purpose of a cold room

To receive and store:

 food
 Pre-cooled food
 Frozen food

What is HACCP?

• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)

• Systematic approach to identifying and controlling hazards (i.e.
Microbiological, chemical or physical) that could pose a danger to the preparation
of safe food.
• HACCP involves identifying what can go wrong and planning to prevent it.
• HACCP has become a part of legislation on food safety and is internationally
certified by an ISO certification dated 2005 (ISO 22000)
• Producers of food products and ingredients for food products must control and
verify that their products and production methods does not generate health risks.
What does HACCP deals with?
 Control of the raw materials
 Production methods (from heat treatment to cold storage)
 Control of end product quality
 Procedure for cleaning and disinfection of equipment and rooms
 Instructions for personnel

You need to take some fundamental steps to maintain the quality of food

HACCP Program
Prerequisite areas

 Training
 Personnel Practices
 Premises equipment and facilities
 Good manufacturing practices
 Cleaning Processes, sanitation, and pest control.
 Receiving, Transportation, and Storage.
 Traceability and recall of product
 Supplier Control
 Hazardous material handling

Cold chain
A cold chain is a temperature controlled supply chain to store and distribute food
products, thereby retaining its quality.
Types of food products

Meat is a dead product. Processes that spoil the product begin right after the
animal has been slaughter.
Fruit and vegetables are “living” products. The metabolism continues after
harvest. So its required to maintain its humidity and temperature to avoid from
losing the quality.
Some dairy product and drinks needs to be maintained under certain
temperature to avoid chemical reaction and microbiological process, which
affects its quality.

What is food quality

Food quality is a term used to describe both physical and individually perceived
factors.
Physical factors: Type and level of bacterial contamination and chemical
processes, type and quantity of food preservatives added
Individually perceived factors: taste, color, smell, consistency, etc...
Methods to preserve the quality of food
The food quality can be maintained by preserving it in different methods by
storing it as
 Refrigerated and frozen food
 As dried food
 As salted food
 Sugaring method
 Smocked food
 Canned food
 Irradiated food
 Dark food (protect from sunlight)

A Cold room controls

 Microbiological process
 Chemical process
 Mechanical process
 Humidity
 Air velocity
 Atmosphere
 cooling process
 storage time

Influence of temperature on food quality

Temperature has a significant influence on the microbiological processes and
chemical process that happen in food products.
Micro biological process

• Low temperature lowers the growth rate of micro-organisms. Typically the

relation between growth rate and temperature is exponential - therefore a
change of only a few degrees can make a large difference in growth rate.

• Many micro-organisms require temperatures above 0 °C for optimum growth

conditions, but some organisms can grow until -12 °C.

• Freezing a product normally kills only 10 - 90 % of the various micro-organisms -

meaning that a product can’t be sterilized by freezing. One type of micro-
organisms that sometimes can be killed by freezing is parasites. Storing a product
at -20 °C for a couple of days (or a week) is normally
Influence of temperature on food quality
Chemical process
• Temperature also influences the chemical processes.
• The lower the temperature the lower the reaction rate.
• Lowering the temperature can not stop most chemical process - these
processes will continue until the temperature reaches -273.15 °C (equal to 0 K).
• Depletion of tissues is needed in some case (Beef)
• When cooling fresh products like fresh meat the temperature must not be
brought down to rapidly as this may cause damage to the product.
•In fruit and vegetables the temperature influences the metabolism and thereby
the heat of respiration

Influence of humidity on food quality

Growth of micro-organisms is also influenced by humidity of the surrounding air
 Water content in food product helps microorganisms to grow.
 Low humidity removes water content from the food product, results in loss
of weight and quality.
 So it’s necessary to maintain the humidity of surrounding air to keep food
products fresh and increase the lifetime.
 In order to maintain a constant and correct humidity, the temperature
must be kept constant.
 Depending on the products stored, it is necessary to add humidity in the
cold room by using a dampener to ensure a correct level of humidity
Influence of air velocity on food quality
 Brewing rate (new air volume/initial air volume = brewing rate) ensures
good air quality in the cold room.
 The air velocity influences cooling and dehydration of the product.
 Higher air flow velocity increases the heat transfer of the product and the
dehumidification rate.
 Increase air dehumidification rate causes loss of water content from the
product.
 So we need to maintain correct level of airflow velocity in the system.
 Product factor (PF) depends on the air velocity and the type of food
product.
Influence of air velocity on food quality - Product factor (PF)
This graph shows the values for product factors for different products and air
velocities. Generally, higher velocities increase the product factor, which also will
increase the dehumidification rate. Some products have surfaces that are very
sensitive to dehumidification (lettuce, mushrooms) while others are not that
sensitive (apples and melons).

Cold room - overview

Cold room - Refrigeration circuit
Refrigeration circuit schematic for a cold room is shown below.
Cold room – Construction
We have to consider the following facts while constructing a cold room.
 Thickness of insulation in the walls
 Insulation value of the insulation walls.
 Door frame heating to avoid frost formations preventing door from
opening.
 Floor heating must be done to avoid ground freezing of soil.
 Air change.
 Ventilation under the floor.
 Pressure relief valve in wall to equalize pressure between room and
ambient (Two-way pressure equalization).
 A stripped curtain/air door
 Man in cold room alarm is mandatory for negative temperature cold rooms
and if the volume is over 10 m3 (ISO 27000). In the other cases, it is
recommended to have this kind of alarm. This alarm has to be acoustic-
visual.
Cold room – Types
Different types of cold room and details are shown in the table given below