While ancient Chinese and Roman societies had methods for keeping food items frozen, frozen meals in supermarkets didn’t really take off until the 1950s.

Prior to that time period, frozen food companies like Birds Eye had made strides toward mass production of frozen foods for everyday consumers, but it wasn’t until flash freezing and the iconic TV dinner became popular that frozen food distribution really came into its own.

How And Why Are Foods Flash Frozen?

Today’s methods of preserving foods using ultra-low temperatures include blast freezing, also referred to as flash freezing.These methods involve the use of high-powered refrigeration equipment that can rapidly move ultra-cool air through sealed chambers where food items are brought down to extremely low temperatures incredibly quickly.

The purpose of using flash freeze methods or blast freezing is to reduce the temperature of food items to prevent the potential for bacterial growth.

It should be noted that flash freezing does not kill all bacteria, and instead, it merely places bacterial cells into a state of hibernation.

This is why flash freezing is used for cooked foods since the cooking process often kills off bacteria. Food items that are to be flash frozen still need to be prepared and handled according to safety guidelines.

Blast freezing is, however, a way to bypass the potential for bacterial growth by rapidly lowering the temperature of a food item to well below freezing, essentially skipping over the temperature at which bacteria can grow.

Allowing a piece of prepared or raw meat or fresh fruit or vegetable to sit at room temperature for any length of time during the preparation process places the item at risk of developing bacteria.

Blast freezing can bypass this window of opportunity, eliminating the chance for bacteria to grow and spread.

A Look Inside An Industrial Blast Freezer

To accomplish this task at scale, a frozen food manufacturer will typically need to employ an industrial blast freezer.

This is a piece of equipment that can accommodate large amounts of food items at a time, and it works by speeding along the freezing process so that water inside of food items never has the chance to form crystals.

Virtually all food items have water molecules in them to some degree, and traditional freezing methods cause these molecules to crystallize before the food item is completely frozen.  magoda