Increasing storage temperature of frozen foods: effect on sustainability and food quality

Abstract An extensive study has been performed to the effect of storage temperature and time on the quality of frozen foods to investigate to what extend freezing temperatures can be increased in the frozen food supply chain to increase sustainability by reducing energy use. Different commercial food categories and relevant quality indicators are studied as a function of storage time t s (up to 18 months) and set storage temperatures T s ( -18 o C, -15 o C, -12 o C , and -9 o C), as well as energy use of the freezers. Experimental data showed that an increase of 3 o C in storage temperature would save about 7% of energy. Furthermore, for a majority of quality attributes, including microbial, storage temperature could be increased from -18 o C to -15 o C, without the attribute exceeding the acceptance limit. Sensory properties show a clear trend with t s and T s and could be well modelled using a Weibull or Logistic model that allows defining combinations of storage temperature and best-before date for each product. For the majority of products the sensory quality attributes are within the acceptability limits before the used by dates when the products are stored at -15 o C. From this study it could be concluded that to increase sustainability in the frozen food supply chain by increasing storage temperature without a loss in food quality, the supply chain should be able to store different products at an increased temperature that is proven to be safe and retains product quality.