Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA: Last month Compass Cold Storage cut the ribbon on a new cold store near Fort Smith in Mulberry, Arkansas. The new cold store, built by Ti Cold, has 18,500 pallet positions with a QFM In-Rack Freezing System.
Cold Chain News spoke exclusively to Bob Tippmann, owner of Tippmann Engineering about trends in the US and British blast freezing market.
“When it comes to freezing palletised products, operators have several options to choose from,” Tippmann said. “The most popular include blast cells, which are designed as part of the building, portable blast cells that can be temporarily installed in truck lots, and in-rack freezing systems like QuickFreeze.”
“Each option has its own benefits and limitations. Blast cells offer a dedicated freezing environment but require very low temperatures to deliver reliable performance. Portable blast cells provide flexibility but may have certain limitations in terms of capacity. In-rack freezing systems can freeze at warmer temperatures while delivering reliable results. While automated solutions to freezing palletised products will be coming soon, the current generation of equipment require pallets to be stacked straight and wrapped. Blast pallets rarely meet either of those requirements.”
Demand for blast freezing is increasing he says. “The demand for blast freezing can vary based on factors such as the price of commodities and changes in population. During the pandemic the need for frozen foods increased and it exposed a vulnerability in the global supply chain. We have seen increased demand as food producers were pressured to provide more resilience in the food supply, which included increased warehouse and blast capacity. The change in attitude in the cold chain from “Just-in-Time” to “Just-in-Case” leads to more products being blast frozen rather than ‘never frozen.’ “
Technology is changing blast freezing, Tippmann says. “In its current form, blast freezing hasn’t changed much since it was introduced in the 1950s. The blueprint to “Make a room very very cold (-40°) and move lots of air” had been the best way to freeze palletised products for many years.
“QuickFreeze better controlled the path of airflow when introduced in 2008, which allowed freezing to occur at much warmer temperatures (-23°C). Case freezing systems, such as GEA’s VRT has also improved case integrity and improved freeze times. QFM was introduced by QuickFreeze in 2019 and has taken over as the flagship product because it freezes pallets individually instead of in batches, which improves reliability and traceability.
The biggest opportunity when reducing energy with blast freezing is raising the temperature when blast freezing occurs, Tippmann says. “An example of significant energy reduction would be going from -40C blast to -30C blast can result in 40% KWH reduction. Warming up the room requires that we provide better controls for Quality Assurance. Traceability goes hand in hand with raising the temperature in spaces that food is frozen and stored.
“We currently have the technology to raise temperatures responsibly while protecting the cold chain. I believe that research, product innovation, and legislation will provide the path that will significantly reduce energy consumption in the cold chain.
