Efficient commercial refrigeration to maintain quality food for long

Esequias Pereira, Junior Sales Senior Manager for Asia-Pacific region, Embraco”

Refrigeration means, maintain freshness of any food item, whilst not affecting the quality, through excessive processing, and hence, is one of the primary ways to expand the shelf life of any food item. Moreover, refrigeration technologies are important to have a healthy and nutritional food. Quality and safety of any food depends on, how are they maintained at a sufficiently low temperature, so as to prevent them from any kind of bacterial collision.

Commercial shelf life of fresh food is mainly controlled by either preventing or limiting microbial growth. This can be done by reducing storage temperature, reducing water activity, adding preservatives. On the other hand, consumers do not always value products that come with a long shelf-life as they associate such products with extensive processing and poor quality. Therefore, foods that use preservatives or thermal treatments are not generally acceptable options for consumers as they affect the food quality and its inherent freshness.

Refrigeration process for food processing
In food processing, specifically, refrigeration systems are usually applied for cooling food down before packing, pasteurisation process and food storage. The process is typically vapor compression refrigeration, where the core is the compressor.

Refrigeration is present in every step of the way of food processing industry, from the farmers field to the industry, to the supermarket, convenience store, hotel, restaurant and, finally, the consumer’s house. First, you have the farm barn that needs industrial refrigeration. From there, you have a distribution centre that also needs industrial refrigeration equipment.

When the food gets to the supermarket, there will be the necessity of industrial refrigeration, cold rooms and self-contained units to keep the food preserved. In a convenience store, there’s also need for commercial refrigeration equipment, as well as in a restaurant. Besides that, the transportation of food between all these points is made on refrigerated vehicles. You can also think about other points through which the consumer can have access to processed food, link a vending machine, which needs refrigeration equipment as well.

Ensuring efficiency in food processing unit
The principal objective of food refrigeration is to preserve food quality and safety. Product quality factors include visual appearance, texture, taste, flavour and nutritional contents. Freezing will kill a fraction of the microorganisms but this cannot be relied on as a fumigation method.

The refrigeration system is an essential part of the food processing unit and industry. Therefore, it’s functioning directly impacts on the results of the efficiency required. Embraco, has solutions that are appropriate to maintain refrigerators working at full potential despite energy fluctuations. Understanding the entire cold food chain, Embraco develops the best solutions and maintains its position as customers preferred partner. As better food production efficiency can reduce waste, manage costs, increase yields and maximise the use of costly raw materials. At the same time, food production efficiency won’t work if it comes at the cost of quality.

Embraco’s presence in India is in line with the country’s objectives which is to increasingly promote energy efficiency in a demanding refrigeration market. We want to provide a better quality of life to India‘s population through innovative solutions specific to the market.