Bochum (Germany) and York, Pennsylvania (USA), November 3, 2013 – Experts for freezing solutions from GEA Refrigeration North America will be on hand at PROCESS EXPO 2013 to discuss the advantages of carton, spiral, tunnel, and impingement freezer solutions for applications in the food and beverage industry. In addition, other GEA professionals will be available to introduce visitors to the company’s broader product line – including ice systems, chillers, screw and piston compressors, compressor packages, custom-engineered systems, controls, and more.
One of the most exciting trends is faster freezing for increased product quality. If the surface of the product is frozen very quickly, moisture is captured inside. In addition, fast freezing avoids formation of large ice crystals, whereas slowly frozen foods lose more moisture while thawing. These are the reasons why GEA Refrigeration Technologies has improved its impingement technology. The result: GEA HVF (high-velocity freezer) with its advanced nozzle design. It can quickly and efficiently freeze hamburger patties, thin fish fillets, shrimp, and other flat products. In addition to freezing the whole product, such impingement freezers are likewise used for crust freezing. In such cases, it is not critical to assure a deep-frozen product core – a hard frozen surface, instead, is essential here, since it is beneficial for slicing meat.
In many applications, versatility plays a key role: e.g., for freezing various ready meals, packed foods, etc. It is beneficial to operate a freezer
that varies its retention time depending on product characteristics and weights – e.g., implemented in the form of GEA I-VRT carton freezers. These freezers apply variable retention times to achieve high quality in the freezing process without wasting time and energy.
Another versatile solution is the GEA Maxi-Stack spiral freezer. It offers special benefits when a greater throughput of frozen products is desired on a given footprint – or when compact equipment dimensions are specified as criteria for the production floor.
For more details about these freezers, please see the following pages of our press release.
Faster freezing of flat food products
High-velocity freezers (HVF) from GEA Refrigeration Technologies, based on impingement technology, enable the freezing of hamburger patties and other flat food products, as well as crust freezing of a wide range of food products. The throughput time is shorter than with conventional impingement systems. These innovative HVF systems from GEA utilize special high-velocity air nozzles, which effectively enable fast penetration of the insulating boundary layer of the goods to be frozen, and fast reduction of the temperature at the outer layer.
The result is fast freezing of the product surface. Since the freezing process takes place faster than with conventional freezers, this minimizes dehydration losses of the food products. The benefits to food processors include higher food quality, less cellular damage, longer shelf life, shorter freezing time, 10 to 15 % greater production capacity, and greater yields – all with less energy consumption. With its HVF, GEA has raised the concept of impingement freezing to a new performance level and has implemented essential hygiene characteristics: e.g., fully welded seams and sloped unit floors. The GEA HVF freezer is available with one conveyor belt – or, as option, with two belts whose variable speeds can be separately adjusted.
