CHAPTER 14

Food Refrigeration and Freezing

14.1 INTRODUCTION
The present-day food industry is almost totally dependent on refrigeration
in one form or another, to manufacture, preserve, store and bring the prod-
uct to the point of sale. Chapter ‘Food Refrigeration – Product by Product’
gives some examples for specific food products, whilst this chapter gives an
overview of cooling methods.
The use of low temperatures for food preservation has been known and
practised for many thousands of years, but it was not until the mid-19th
century that Pasteur and others determined the bacteriological nature of
food spoilage and the beneficial effect of cooling which slows chemical
reactions and breakdown by bacteria. Mechanical refrigeration made it pos-
sible to provide the extra food required by the growing urban populations.
A large international trade was built up, starting with the transport of frozen
meats to Europe in 1873 and 1876 from Australasia and South America.
As a general rule, foods which are not to be frozen are handled and
stored at a temperature just above their freezing point, providing this does
no damage (exceptions are fruits such as bananas and lemons). Produce
which is to be frozen must be taken down to a temperature low enough to
significantly reduce the amount of free moisture and hence bacterial activ-
ity. Until the temperature is reduced below the minimum temperature for
growth, some microorganisms can potentially multiply.
A distinction must be drawn between the cooling process and the sub-
sequent storage. Careful control of temperature and humidity is needed
when cooling warm produce since evaporative cooling plays a part in both
product temperature and weight loss. Considerable research has been car-
ried out to find optimum methods for different foodstuffs, especially meats,
for cooling and for short-term and long-term storage.
Cooling and freezing cannot improve a fresh vegetable, fruit or meat
product, and the best that can be achieved is to keep it near to the condi-
tion in which it entered the cooling process. This means that only the best
produce should be used, and this should be as fresh as possible. However
sometimes preservation in cold stores is essential to prevent wastage, regard-
less of the quality of the crop.

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14.2  PRE-STORAGE TREATMENT

All foods must be clean on entry. Vegetables and fruits should be dirt-free
and some, such as fish, leaf vegetables and some fruits, may be washed and
left wet. Fish will tend to dry out and lose its fresh appearance, so it is
packed wet or given a sprinkling of ice chips to keep the surface moist. For
meat and poultry the degree of surface microbial contamination is critical.
The shelf life of meat is dependent on the initial numbers of spoilage
bacteria on carcasses. With higher numbers, fewer doublings are required
to reach a spoilage level. Contamination of carcasses may occur at virtually
every stage of slaughtering and processing, particularly during flaying and
evisceration of red-meat animals and scalding, and mainly affects the surface
of the carcass. Sources of contamination have been reviewed by James et al.
(1999). The adoption of good production practices throughout the slaugh-
tering system and hygienic handling practices should ensure that bacteria
counts on the finished carcass are at an acceptable level. Decontamination
methods are also sometimes applied (James and James, 1997).
Potatoes will start to sprout after a long period in storage. This can be
checked by spraying the freshly lifted tubers with a chemical sprout depres-
sant. Certain fruits, notably grapes and dates, may have some surface con-
tamination or infestation when first picked, and they are fumigated with
sulphur dioxide or some other gas. Chlorine washing is also used. They
must, of course, then be thoroughly ventilated before going into storage.
The techniques of this processing will be known to the user or can be
found in sources from the particular branch of the food industry.
Handling conditions must be hygienic. Some types of food, such as milk,
can be kept sealed within the processing system. If the food will be exposed
to the air during handling, the conditions of the surrounding air – in terms
of temperature, humidity and cleanliness – must be the best that can be
maintained. This is especially the case with fresh meats.

14.3 PRE-COOLING
If warm produce is taken into a cold store, moisture will evaporate from its
surface and this may result in excessive humidity and condensation on the
cold produce already there. This will be of no consequence with wet prod-
ucts such as fish and leaf vegetables. Meat and poultry are pre-cooled in a
separate room under controlled conditions so that the product is reduced to
near-final storage temperature.
Pre-cooling can be achieved by allowing produce to stand in ambient
air, especially at night. For example, apples and pears picked in the daytime
 Food Refrigeration and Freezing 223

at 25°C may cool down to 12°C by the following morning, halving the
final refrigerated cooling load.
Wet products can be pre-cooled in chilled water or by the addition of
flake ice. Ice is also used with fish and leaf vegetables to help maintain fresh-
ness in transit to storage. Leaf vegetables can be cooled by placing them in a
vacuum chamber and so evaporating surface water at low pressure.

14.4 FREEZING
Storage in the frozen state enables products to be kept for longer than
maintaining chilled conditions. Freezing reduces bacterial degradation re-
actions to a very low level but causes structural change in the product due
to the formation of ice crystals. The cells of animal and vegetable products
contain a water solution of salts and sugars. When this solution starts to
freeze, surplus water will freeze out until the eutectic mixture is reached
(see Section 12.6). If freezing is not carried out quickly, the ice crystals will
grow and pierce the cell walls; then when the product thaws out, the cells
will leak and the texture will be spoiled. This is of no great consequence
with the meats, whose texture is changed by cooking, but fresh fruit and
vegetables need to be frozen quickly.
The texture and moisture content of the product after thawing will dif-
fer from that of the fresh product, and for some products it also results in
weight loss in the form of ‘drip loss’. Different freezing methods are used to
minimise these effects.
As a general rule, any product which will be eaten without cooking, or
only very brief cooking (such as green peas, strawberries and beans), should
be quick-frozen in a blast-freezing tunnel or similar device. Other foodstuffs
need not be frozen so quickly, and placing food items in large refriger-
ated rooms is the most common method of freezing. For meat and poultry
there is no clearly defined optimum freezing rate. Many factors such as final
product quality (tenderness, flavour), weight loss, drip loss, and uniformity
of texture have been investigated. A comparison (Sundsten et al., 2001) re-
vealed some commercial advantages of fast freezing, but no quality advan-
tages. During industrial processing, frozen raw material is often thawed or
tempered before being turned into the final product which is subsequently
frozen. Meat-based products, that is pies, convenience meals, burgers, etc.,
often include meat which has been frozen twice.
Frozen confections such as ice cream rely on speed of freezing to obtain
a certain consistency and texture, and they require special treatment (see
chapter: Food Refrigeration – Product by Product).
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14.5  QUICK FREEZING

The speed of freezing is a relative matter, but ‘quick frozen’ produce is gen-
erally frozen in 5–10 min in an air blast, and depending on the thickness
this can be somewhat quicker if immersed. Various methods have evolved,
depending on the available resources, the product concerned and the pre-
mium value it might earn in an improved frozen state.
Where the product shape is irregular, the only way to extract its heat will
be by using a cold fluid surrounding it. Air is the obvious choice – it is eco-
nomical, hygienic and relatively non-corrosive to equipment. The air tem-
perature will be of the order of −40°C and the air speed over the product will
be high, to get good heat transfer. Circulation of air around stacked product
in a cold room is used for batch processes. This requires good air distribution
and an optimum value exists between the decrease in freezing time and the
increasing power required to drive the fans to produce higher air speeds.
Discrete pieces of product, such as peas, slices of carrot, beans and items
of this size, can be conveyed on a perforated belt. This may be a fluidised bed
where cold air is directed upwards through the mesh belt and the food particu-
lates begin to tumble and float.This exposes all sides of the food to the cold air
and maximises heat transfer. Flat pieces of product, such as fish fillets, would
suffer a change in shape in a free air blast and are better on a flat moving belt.
Here, some of the heat goes directly to the cold air and some by conduction to
the belt, which is usually of stainless steel.The tunnel can be designed to absorb
much less fan power which improves efficiency, because fans are located in the
cooled space and the heat generated by their motors adds to the cooling load.
Linear tunnels are restricted by the length of belt necessary to achieve
the cooling time required and on the space available. Conveyors wound into
a spiral shape and contained within a cold-room with an air blast coil offer a
more compact arrangement (see Figs 14.1 and 14.2). Spiral freezers are very
good for larger items, such as tubs of ice cream which take a long time to
harden and where a straight conveyor would be too long for convenience.

14.6  CONTACT FREEZING

Modern plate cooling systems differ little in principle from the first contact
freezer patented in 1929 by Clarence Birdseye. Products in regular-shaped
packages, such as ice cream in flat cartons, are pressed between horizontal, flat,
refrigerated plates (see Fig. 14.3).These can be opened apart slightly to admit
the product and are then closed by hydraulic rams to give close thermal con-
tact. When freezing is complete, the plates open again to remove the packs.
 Food Refrigeration and Freezing 225

Figure 14.1  Arrangement of spiral freezer.

Figure 14.2  View of spiral freezer (Star Refrigeration).

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Figure 14.3  Arrangement of plate freezer (RD&T).

A horizontal plate freezer is shown in Fig. 7.13a. The vertical plate freezer

(Fig. 7.13b) is used for a loose product such as wet fish, which is packed into
the gaps between the plates. When the freezing is complete, the product is
removed as a solid block and may be of 75 or 100 mm thick (Fig. 14.4).
Contact freezers are less costly to operate because they do not use fans
for air movement.The cooling is accomplished by direct contact of product
with a surface, which in turn is in direct contact with the refrigerant or
secondary coolant.
Material to be frozen can be fully immersed in a cold liquid such as a
brine. This is only suitable for wrapped product. Sodium chloride and gly-
col brines are not cold enough to get complete freezing, so this may be the
first pre-cooling stage before a final air blast. Alternatively, liquid nitrogen
(−196°C) or carbon dioxide (−78.5°C) can be sprayed onto the surface.
This is termed cryogenic freezing.

14.7  FREEZE DRYING

Certain products cannot be kept in the liquid form for an appreciable time
and must be reduced to dry powders, which can then be kept at chill or am-
bient temperatures. The water must be removed to make them into pow-
ders, but any heating above ambient to boil off the water would lead to
rapid deterioration. The water must therefore be removed at low tempera-
ture, requiring low pressures of the order of 125 Pa.
 Food Refrigeration and Freezing 227

Figure 14.4  Blocks of chicken at end of freeze cycle (Star Refrigeration).

The process is carried out in a vacuum chamber fitted with refrigerated

contact freezing plates, heaters and a vacuum pump. Between the chamber
and the pump may be a refrigerated separator to prevent too much of the
moisture entering the pump. The product is placed in containers on the
plates and frozen down to about −25°C, depending on the product, but
sometimes as low as −50°C. The vacuum and, at the same time, a carefully
controlled amount of heat, is then applied to provide the latent heat of sub-
limation (ice to vapour) without allowing the temperature to rise. As the
water is driven off, the product collapses to a dry powder. This is extremely
hygroscopic and must be packed in air-tight containers as quickly as pos-
sible on completion of the cycle.
This process was developed for the preservation of antibiotics, but is now
in widespread use for other products such as ‘instant’ coffee, tea, soup, etc.

14.8  POST-STORAGE OPERATIONS

As a general principle, products leaving cold storage for ultimate consump-
tion may be allowed to rise slightly in temperature. They should be kept
as close to the storage temperature as long as possible down the chain of
228 Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heat Pumps

d­ elivery. This requires prompt handling and the use of cooled vehicles up
to the final retail outlet (see chapter: The Cold Chain – Transport, Storage,
Retail).
Some products require special treatment, for which provision should be
made, for example:
• Frozen meat coming out of long-term storage to be sold chilled must
be thawed out under controlled conditions. This is usually carried out
by the retail butcher, who will hang the carcass in a chill room (−1°C)
for 2 or 3 days. On a large scale, thawing rooms use warmed air at a
temperature below 10°C.
• Potatoes and onions coming out of storage will collect condensation
from the ambient air and must be left to dry or they will rot.
• Fruits of various sorts are imported in a semi-green state and must be
ripened off under the right conditions for sale.
• Some cheeses are frozen before they have matured. On thawing out for
final distribution and sale, they need to mature.