How Blast Freezing Validations Work

Blast freezing, sometimes referred to as shock freezing, is the process of rapidly freezing food product, with the intention to pause shelf life without compromising the products’ overall quality, taste and texture.

At Magnavale, we have blast freezers located at all four of our cold storage facilities, Chesterfield, Scunthorpe, Warrington, and Easton. We have extensive experience operating blast freezers as well as other frozen solutions such as frozen warehousing for food products. We have handled a wide range of food products including, dairy, poultry, pork and bakery items, to name a few.

For all new customers seeking blast freezing solutions, we carry out a validation to determine the optimum process to freeze the designated product down to -18°C as quickly as possible. Timing is vital when freezing food products; the faster the process the smaller the ice crystals that form within the cells of organic products are. The size of the ice crystal impacts the quality of the overall product. The smaller these crystals are the better the overall texture and taste of the product, whilst larger ice crystals alter the texture of the product and can form an icy layer over the food product.

What is a Blast Freezing Validation?

The blast freezing validations we carry out at Magnavale are simple, however, the data that is recorded is essential for an efficient and high-quality blast freezing process. The aim of the trial is to determine the best and fastest way for the product to reach -18°C.

Depending on the customers’ requirements, the palletised food product is re-stacked and eggshells (unique food safe plastic layer separation material) are placed in between each layer of cases, allowing the cool air, produced by the blast freezer, to efficiently flow through the pallet to the core of the food product. 

During the re-stacking process, data loggers are placed in the top, bottom and core of the pallet and the time to reach -18°C and the blast freezer is set to freeze the food product. Once the product achieves -18°C, the data loggers are removed, and our technical team analyses and graphs the data. A report, containing the data, and in some cases some recommendations, is then sent back to the customer.

Without these validations it would be impossible to guarantee the consistent results expected from the Magnavale blast freezing process.

As a rule of thumb, the denser the food product, the longer it will take the achieve -18°C, however, there are many factors that contribute to the process, such as product packaging.

If you’re interested in our blast freezing solutions or frozen storage, please enquire below.