The Big Chill

For the better part of a century, freezing has proven a highly effective method of food preservation. Nevertheless, today’s product developers—and the ingredient processors, packaging experts and technology innovators who serve them—keep striving for greater culinary integrity, shelf life and value in the products they freeze.

Compared to refrigerated foods, which hold their connection to freshness dear but have a shelf life counted in days, frozen foods offer a shelf life of months and still generally high quality, but are sometimes compromised by uncontrolled moisture migration and ice crystal growth, among other challenges. But improvements in ingredients, packaging and freezing technology continue to help product developers make great strides in the culinary quality of frozen foods—from soups to entrées and desserts—so that they can compete with refrigerated foods in rubrics like freshness and overall quality. These approaches to improved frozen foods can be as prosaic as reducing the moisture in the vegetables that top a frozen pizza or as fanciful as using a genetically modified protein patterned after that of an Arctic fish to control ice crystals in ice cream—or even an investment in cutting-edge, super-rapid-freezing technology.

INGREDIENT SOLUTIONS

Product developers have long turned to starches and hydrocolloids like xantham gum and guar gum to deal with troublesome moisture issues in frozen foods. And in recent years, new fiber-based ingredients—made from raw materials like dried orange pulp, as well as oats or corn—with substantial water-binding capabilities (among other functionalities, like fat replacement) have also come into use.

Some products craft multiple tiers of protection from the adverse effects of freezing into the mix. For instance, much work has been done to keep cheese sauces stable through freezing and thawing, a process that can damage protein structure and allow moisture to escape, notes Kristi Jankowski, vice president of research and development, Sargento Foods, Plymouth, WI. Managing the moisture may involve manipulating the proteins so they have stronger water-binding properties, or adding starches or cellulose gums to help prevent damage during freeze/thaw cycles. “We like to have as many barriers as possible built into the formulation,” she says.