What is IQF?

 You might be freezing food just by storing it in the freezer not knowing there are many more techniques to do it just right. Foods could also be well preserved with techniques like canning, dehydration, jarring, pickling, and salting.

But none of these get the job well done as freezing.  Among the many food refrigeration techniques like, plate freezer, blast cooling, dehydro freezing, tunnel freezing, and cryogenics, IQF is a technique that stands out in the food industry

IQF is not just important from the packaging perspective but that of health too! Frozen foods are the key raw material in the food industry. Frozen foods are the starting point of almost all the market-bought foods if you magnify the processes a market-sold product goes through.

So, what exactly is IQF?

IQF (Individually quick frozen) also known as flash freezing, means freezing the food literally in a flash at extremely low temperatures. This only freezes the food and refrains ice crystals from forming inside and outside the produce, which happens with slower freezing processes like Cold Store freezing. This helps with an added advantage by eventually keeping cell damage at bay.

As the full form suggests, quite literally every piece of food is frozen individually to perfection by implementing the right mix of temperature and motion. The industrial process that is, is often mistaken to be completely frozen to be a big piece of ice. 

It is simply frozen and doesn't need thawing for the next use!

The process is done by freezing individual food produce on a conveyor belt as the chiller flash freezes the produce in a flash, literally. 

The reason why foods are frozen individually is to avoid being conjoined or lumped together in a ball. So that the next time you open up a pack of corn, you don't find a lump of kernels, but food that has its mouthwatering look intact unblemished.

Since the produce is placed separately on the conveyor belt, they are bound to stay separated even after freezing and being packaged

WHY IQF

All the techniques have a ton of pros and cons, but with IQF all we see are pros and why you should pick it.

As with the fruits and vegetables that are not frozen, it begins degrading the moment it is harvested. Considering that the distribution takes time, its quality is further susceptible to degrading by the time it reaches the end consumer.

The food industry holds its standards high with its resources in terms of food safety and quality.

Adding deteriorated ingredients to your dishes may damage your business, won’t it?

Needless to say, the process is implemented in a quicker period and the food is preserved without the addition of preservatives. The flash freezing process only freezes the produce and does not form any ice crystals in the produce, hence maintaining the superior quality. Slower freezing processes may tend to make the food dry and damaged when they are defrosted

Again, thanks to the technique, the food won’t end up dry or mushy when it's finally ready to be served on your plate or poured into your glass.

On another note, other techniques of preservation might cause cellular damage to the produce thereby changing the color, texture, quality, and taste of the produce. Keeping these factors is indeed a sign of quality freezing, hence keeping quality deterioration or deformation at bay.

Whereas, this technique prevents damage and protects the damage and will produce almost no ice crystals inside nor outside of the product.

APPLICATIONS OF IQF

The technique of IQF is not at all limited to one food group but expands to many food products like fruits, vegetables, herbs, clams, shrimps, french fried, corns, berries, pork, lobster, and salmon can be frozen with the application of the IQF technique.

A wide range of applications in the culinary front for the preparation of dishes like Smoothies, yogurts, cakes, decorations for confectionaries, and juices has created a strong need for the application of IQF to keep produce safe.

The application does not only expand to another food group but grows its options to organic food alternatives as well.

The application brings fresher and higher quality food to the market with its freshness, ripeness, and nutrition intact. This keeps the authentic characteristics of the natural food undisturbed thereby maintaining the food integrity.

Therefore the speed with which the harvest reaches the market and eventually the end customer even if not quick does not affect the quality of what you consume

 

AFTERTHOUGHT

The method if right for you or not, depends on certain factors like financial limitations, the amount of harvest, and storage dynamics. Considering these factors can help you zero down on a decision that suits your operations.

The rapidly growing food industry has skyrocketed the implementation of the IQF technology to preserve food in a way that saves time, money, manpower, and efforts while taking their biggest worry away.