Freezing Frozen Foods

The most easiest, quickest and convinient method to preserving food is Freezing.

- Swati Solanki

If the food products are properly frozen then their original colour, texture and flavour is more maintained than food preserved by other methods. The initial reason of packaging is to keep food from drying out and to maintain its nutritive value, flavor, texture and color. Labels on packages will say if the product is suitable for freezer storage.

A good packaging material should have the following characteristics:

• Doesn’t become brittle and crack at low temperatures.

• Highly resistant to oil, grease or water.

• Preserve foods from off flavors and odors.

• Easy to fill and seal.

• Moisture proof or at least moisture resistant.

• Made of food grade material, i.e. designed to be used for food products.

• Durable and leakproof.

• Easy to mark and store

Following are some of the popular frozen food packaging materials.

1. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) – PET can withstand abrupt change in temperature. Hence, this can be used for boil-in-the-bag or microwaveable frozen product packagings.

2. Cardboard and laminated paper – This type of packaging generally observed in FMCG products like ice-creams, curds, fresh fruit juices etc. However, this packaging has a limited life after taking the product off from the freezer.

3. Tin cans – Tin cans are the traditional frozen food packaging material. But, PET and PE are taking over metal cans because they are more economical. However, known brands still use tin cans to retain their brand identity.