When people talk about quick freezing or flash freezing it is normally refer to IQF technology which stands for “Individual Quick-Frozen”. It is a technology that freezes the products individually in a very short time.
Nowadays, a lot of frozen food is frozen using this technology to Freeze the “Freshness”. Is it even possible? Scientifically, when we use refrigerator to freeze our food, whether is meat vegetables or baked products, it takes time to completely freeze it, the more time it takes, the more time there is for the water molecules contained in the food to come together and form large ice crystals within the food. These ice crystals could damage the fibers/cell/tissue of the frozen food. Hence, deteriorating the taste, moisture, texture and even the vitamins, and nutrients of the food. Quick freezing is different, it rapidly freezes the food using blast of air at a very low temperature, 0 °C to −5 °C or lower and in a short time. This results in only very small amount of ice crystals are formed, which ensures the freshness of food is frozen when they arrive at your kitchen, all the way until you defrost them from bag, prepare and serve them.
IQF now is used in many products such as batch of berries, peaches, peas, fishes, prawns and etc. This makes them easier to be packaged into different sizes and also gives them longer shelf life.
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