Abstract
An industrial, automated superchilling process line needs to combine the requirement for gentle handling of a valuable raw material with demands for energy efficiency, high capacity and product quality. The results from the study of three alterative process lines for superchilled processing of fresh cod showed large variations with respect to processing time, need for manual operations, skinning errors and yield. The processing time and need for operators was very high for the Marel superchilling concept, while the quality and yield was high. The alternative involving skinning in a Baader59 unit followed by superchilling in an impingement freezer was very rapid and showed competitive results for quality and yield. Superchilling in the impingement freezer followed by skinning in the Baade59 unit resulted in a substantial amount of skinning errors in spite of very rapid processing. An efficient process presupposes a high yield combined with efficient production, large capacity, few operators, few skinning errors and an end product of high quality. The results from the current experiments indicate that superchilled processing of cod by means of skinning in the Baader59 unit followed by superchilling in the Impingement freezer would be the most competitive alternative, taken the above mentioned factors into account. The method implies short processing time, low amount of skinning errors, little manual operation as well as high yield and quality.a Superchilling is a robust method for conserving fresh food, and brings along many possibilities due to the extended product shelf-life. In the near future it is considered likely that most industrial processing of fresh fish will be done by means of superchilling, and the pioneer industry currently taking on the method will have a great advantage based on the experience from final development and implementation of the superchilling technology.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved