FreezeWave Final Congress November the 5th at Nantes, France.
Freezing is an efficient preservation process often used in food industry. The quality of frozen food is largely due to the size and the distribution of the ice crystals. Small crystals homogeneously distributed are known to minimize the freeze damage and to better preserve the initial quality of the frozen food. A fast freezing is recommended to obtain smaller ice crystals; however, it also addresses a higher energy demand. Recent studies such as Anese et al, 2012 or Xanthakis et al 2014 (using respectively Radio Frequency waves and micro waves) showed that a refinement of the ice crystals cans be obtained when applying electrical disturbances during freezing. The objectives of the FREEZEWAVE project is to study the interest of applying microwave at low energy during freezing to improve the quality of frozen foods. A modeling approach combined with experiments will permit to optimize the operating conditions and the energy consumption.