Frozen fruits and vegetables

From Efficiency Finder
Jump to: navigation, search

Back to Information about fruits & vegetables


I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION:


1. General Flowsheet of deep-frozen fruit and vegetable production
(BAT for Food, Drink and Milk Industries, June 2005)


Frozen fruits.jpg


Figure 1: Deep-frozen fruit and vegetable production. Literature: BAT in Food, Drink and Milk Industries, June 2005


2. Description of techniques, methods and equipment
(BAT for Food, Drink and Milk Industries, June 2005)

The freezing of fruits is a major preservation method in its own right and it is widely used to preserve fruits which are to be further processed, e.g. for the manufacture of jam. Fruits intended for freezing are generally washed and inspected before being individually quick frozen (IQF), or packed in syrup or pureed before freezing. Typical fast freezing methods involve direct contact with a cooled solid, e.g. band or drum freezers, direct contact with cooled air or other gaseous mixtures, e.g. blast air, fluidized bed and spiral freezers, direct immersion in a cooled liquid, e.g. brine freezers or cryogenic freezers. The process for deep-frozen fruit and vegetables is presented below:


3. Temperature ranges and other parameters (table)

No information is available.


4. Benchmark data
  • Frozen vegetables:
a) Peeling:
In frozen vegetable processing, salsifies and carrots are peeled before being mechanically processed. Caustic peeling and steam peeling are two methods used. Caustic peeling needs less energy, both in terms of electricity consumption and steam consumption, than steam peeling, but creates moe load for the waste water. The energy consumption in both cases is shown below:


Frozen fruits2.jpg


b) Blanching:
Drum and belt blanchers are used in manufacturing deep frozen vegetables. Energy consumption depends on, not only the type of blanching device, but also the type of subsequent cooling step. Typical energy consumption levels are shown below:


Frozen fruits3.jpg


Furthermore, the electricity consumption for the production of ice-water is included in the electricity consumption shown for deep freezing. For example, in terms of energy consumption, the belt blancher with water cooling has the lowest total consumption. The heat released by the cooling of the product in the cooling zone is used to preheat the vegetables. In this way, less steam is necessary for blanching. The following tables show the energy carrier and consumption for belt blancher with water cooling in vegetable processing and the energy carrier and order of magnitude indicators of the belt blancher with air cooling in vegetable processing:


Frozen fruits4.jpg


II. NEW TECHNOLOGIES:


a) Changes in the process

No information is available.


b) Changes in the energy distribution system

No information is available.


c) Changes in the heat supply system

No information is available.


III. SOLAR SYSTEMS INTEGRATION:

No information is available.


Back to Information about fruits & vegetables