Could ‘Isochoric Freezing’ revolutionise food preservation?

Abstract

The present article responds to the food engineering community’s growing interest in an emerging and lauded approach to food preservation, popularised by its developers as ‘isochoric freezing’. A strong campaign in the scientific literature and mass media has recently promoted this technique as a universal replacement for traditional food freezing and the frozen supply chain by highlighting a number of alleged advantages of ‘isochoric freezing’. Some of these claims therefore require a more neutral and critical assessment against the background of the today’s state of the art in food freezing technologies. Hence, this article spotlights several concerns regarding the plausibility, energy expenditure, resource efficiency, process rate, throughput and safety of ‘isochoric freezing’, as well as the correct use of food refrigeration terminology. The aspects considered are intended to make food scientists, technologists and engineers more aware of the real capabilities and the application perspectives of this still immature mode of refrigerated food processing.