Superchilling of muscle foods: Potential alternative for chilling and freezing

ABSTRACT

Superchilling is an attractive technique for preservation of muscle foods which freezes part of the water and insulate the food products from temperature fluctuations thereby enhancing the shelf-life during storage, transportation and retailing. Superchilling process synergistically improves the product shelf-life when used in combination with vacuum or modified atmospheric packaging. The shelf-life of muscle foods was reported to be increased by 1.5 to 4.0 times relative to traditional chilling technique. Advantages of superchilling and its ability to maintain the freshness of muscle foods over freezing has been discussed and its potential for Industrial application is highlighted. Present review also unravel the mechanistic bases for ice-crystal formation during superchilling and measures to ameliorate the drip loss. The future challenges especially automation in superchilling process for large scale Industrial application is presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Superchilling
• muscle foods
• packaging
• shelf-life
• ice-crystal formation

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

The authors acknowledge the support of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India for this study.