Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Individually Quick Frozen” Is Food Packaging at Its Best

Considered one of the top methods for food preservation and extremely effective at conserving product nutritional value. Individually Quick Frozen or IQF is a great example of a common method used in food packaging. This form of food packaging helps prevent large ice crystal build up within the product itself. Allowing for the product to have longer shelf life and minimal nutritional lose.

 


When utilizing this method every piece of product is frozen individually by very small ice crystals. This is done extremely fast and avoids damaging the products nutrients. Other methods of freezing are much slower, producing larger ice crystals in the process which can be a bad thing for the product.

Slow freezing and large ice crystals will typically result in dry or damaged food. IQF's tiny crystals however will not because the process used to freeze every individual product piece is ultra fast. Capable of blast freezing large amounts in very little time making for a higher quality of product selection for the consumer.


 

Other methods like canning or pickling are available for food packaging as well along with a few others. Freezing however is one of the more common practices and it can be used for any type of food productpackaging. Older methods of freeze preservation or packaging in general for that matter risk the products quality. Possibly altering flavor and/or texture more so than not.

With IQF you can also assure such things as berries and corn don't clump up or smush together during preservation. The products interior cellular structure will not be altered much, if at all penetrated by the ice crystals. Leaving the food frozen but not in the solid ice kind of a way, only the outer layer will be affected.

 


Ideally you can use IQF on any type of foods you desire. Different meats and seafood can benefit from IQF as much as French fries, peas, etc. Technology has helped improve so much in life and continues to awe us daily with its amazing capabilities. Food packaging will not be left out of the mix and offering methods such as IQF proves it.

Nobody likes unpackaging bad food or the smell it can bring along with it. Even if it isn't spoiled, we still expect quality for our hard earned money. Older methods while effective leave to much room for the possibility of spoilage or loss of nutrition. In other words, you'll be risking the taste of grandma's famous pie recipe using anything but fresh product.


Back in her time food was handled with much more love and attention which in turn resulted in fresher options to pick from. Times are much faster now, and the population has grown tremendously since that time. Demand has outweighed supply allowing way for newer much more efficient means of packaging. And IQF looks to be leading the way when it comes to high quality and efficient food packaging methods.

The equipment used for the IQF process is specialized and not widely available as of yet. There are only a handful of manufacturers who currently deal in IQF machinery and supplies available to assist you. If IQF packaging is an interest of yours reaching out to a certified professional in the food packaging industry should definitely be your first step.

 

 

 

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