Innovative Freezing Techniques in Food Preservation
Summary
The preservation of perishable foods through freezing has evolved beyond simple temperature reduction to encompass a suite of innovative approaches that regulate ice formation, enhance product quality and extend shelf life. Recent advances focus on controlling ice nucleation and growth to produce fine, uniformly distributed crystals, thereby minimising cellular damage in fruits, vegetables, meat and aquatic products. Techniques such as ultrasound-assisted freezing, high-pressure freezing and field-mediated crystallisation accelerate the freezing rate and influence water molecule dynamics to favour intracellular or small extracellular ice crystals. Concurrently, the development of bio-inspired materials—such as natural deep eutectic solvents, anti-freezing proteins and eutectogels—offers novel routes to inhibit ice growth and frost formation at interfaces. Innovative freeze-concentration methods further enable the efficient processing of viscous or thermally sensitive bio-solutions without compromising functional properties. Collectively, these techniques promise to enhance nutrient retention, improve texture and reduce energy consumption, with significant implications for global food supply chains and sustainability.
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Innovative Freezing Techniques in Food Preservation publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in innovative freezing techniques in food preservation across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Ice nucleation: The initial formation of ice crystals from supercooled water, which determines crystal number and size.
Recrystallisation: The growth and merging of ice crystals during storage that leads to larger, irregular crystals and quality loss.
Ultrasound-assisted freezing: A technique using high-frequency sound waves to promote rapid cooling and fine ice crystal formation.
Freeze concentration: A method that removes water as ice to concentrate solutes in bio-liquids without thermal degradation.
Deep eutectic solvents (DES): Mixtures of natural components that form a eutectic with low melting point, used to regulate ice formation.
Eutectogels: Gelled DES films that resist frost formation and maintain flexibility at low temperatures through moisture immobilisation.
References
- Regulating ice formation for enhancing frozen food quality: Materials, mechanisms and challenges. Trends in Food Science & Technology (2023).
- Multi-stage freeze concentration of fish protein hydrolysates: A CFD–experimental approach addressing viscosity and freezing point challenges. Results in Engineering (2025).
- An Overview on Magnetic Field and Electric Field Interactions with Ice Crystallisation; Application in the Case of Frozen Food. Crystals (2017).
- Bio-inspired eutectogels enabled by binary natural deep eutectic solvents (NADESs): Interfacial anti-frosting, freezing-tolerance, and mechanisms. Food Hydrocolloids (2022).
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