Freeze drying for ready to eat foods

Question

Hello Everyone,

I have been reading up about freeze drying technique and I find it very interesting & good method for preserving food for a long time. Now, I wonder whether this method can be used to preserve ready to eat food and re-hydrate them before consumption. Does anyone has experience with this technique? To what extend we can use this technology to preserve RTE food? Are there any major challenges (other than higher cost)?

Thank you, appreciate all your thoughts.

Answer 1

Yield is low and will take longer time to process. You know what's next. :wink:

Answer 2

all these depends on what is inside your RTE packet. Would be good to throw in more details of the RTE content.

Answer 3

Thinking of something like soup contains some meat and veggies. Would it be possible?

Answer 4

Why do you make it complicated and expensive; soup base are in powder mix that just need it to be hydrated with hot water for soup. Veggies maybe dried conventionally or freezer dried at added expense
The fact is freeze drying process is used selectively on items that are sensitive to conventional drying processes..

Answer 5

[quote="Marce, post:1, topic:8706, full:true"]
Hello Everyone,

I have been reading up about freeze drying technique Are there any major challenges (other than higher cost)?

[/quote]

The very reason its only applied in heat sensitive material never for general drying. Purposes due to huge investment cosr and expense in running it.

Answer 6

Thank you everyone, really appreciate the thoughts. Seems like the high cost and complicated process still outweigh the benefits...

Freeze drying for ready to eat foods

Answers (6)