frozen foods

Type: Public
On the web: http://www.ffeinc.com
Employees: 2,286
Employee growth: 4.5%

The frozen assets of other companies mean big business for Frozen Food Express Industries, one of the largest temperature-controlled trucking companies in the US. Through its subsidiaries, which include FFE Transportation Services and Lisa Motor Lines, the company transports truckload and less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Hauling temperature-sensitive cargo accounts for most of the company's sales. Frozen Food Express Industries also hauls dry freight, under the American Eagle Lines brand, and offers logistics services. Overall, the company maintains a fleet of about 1,800 tractors and 3,500 trailers. FFE traces its roots to 1946.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2010:
Sales: $368.8M
One year growth: (1.1%)
Net income: ($11.9)M

Officers:
Chairman: Stoney M. (Mit) Stubbs Jr.
President, CEO, and Director: S. Russell Stubbs
EVP, COO, and Director: John T. Hickerson

Competitors:
Central Refrigerated Service
Marten Transport
Prime, Inc.

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Founded: 1945
SIC: 4213 Trucking Except Local; 5078 Refrigeration Equipment & Supplies

Frozen Food Express Industries, Inc. was, in the mid-1990s, the largest temperature-controlled trucking company in North America. The company's temperature-controlled less-than-truckload (LTL) operation was the largest in the United States and the only one offering regularly scheduled nationwide service, including multicompartment refrigerated trailers to carry goods requiring different temperatures. Frozen Food Express also was believed to be one of the five largest temperature-controlled, full-truckload carriers in North America. More than 80 percent of its cargo, such as food products, pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, and film, consisted of temperature-sensitive perishables. The company turned a profit in every year of its first half-century in business.

Frozen Food Express was founded in 1945 by two uncles of Stoney M. Stubbs, Jr., joined shortly thereafter by his father. Its main assets were operating rights in Texas and a handful of trucks. Revenues for the first year's operations were less than $100,000. From the beginning the company was a specialist in transporting products requiring refrigeration. Because refrigerated tractor-trailers or "reefers," cost nearly three times as much as regular trailers and burned a good deal more fuel as well, big trucking companies were willing to leave this niche market to smaller operators. The junior Stubbs washed and loaded trucks in high school and earned a business degree from Texas A&M in 1959. He then went back to work for the family enterprise, becoming president in 1979. Eugene O. Weller, his uncle, remained chairman and CEO of the company until 1984, when Stubbs assumed these positions as well.

Frozen Food Express Industries was formed in 1969, at which time the prior Frozen Food Express became its subsidiary. In 1971 Frozen Food Express Industries (hereafter called Frozen Food Express for short) became publicly held through an offering of 350,000 shares of common stock at $15 a share. Half of these shares were sold by existing shareholders. The $2.3 million in net proceeds from the shares sold by the company were applied in full against long-term debt. Revenues increased from $10.8 million in 1966 to $23.7 million in 1971. Net income rose from $232,000 to $1.2 million during this period.

Frozen Food Express expanded rapidly in the late 1960s by taking advantage of the decentralization of the meat-processing industry and the growth in the popularity of frozen convenience foods and fresh produce. By the end of 1971 the company was operating in 23 states, mostly in the Midwest and Southwest but stretching as far west as California and as far east as Ohio and Kentucky. Of 100 motor carriers classified as solid refrigerated carriers filing reports with the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1971, the company was the third largest, based on operating revenue. In that year the company acquired W & B Refrigeration Service Co., a franchised distributor for truck and trailer refrigeration equipment bearing the Carrier-Transicold brand. Made a subsidiary, W & B specialized in keeping refrigerated units, including the parent company's own, in top condition.

At this time large-volume shippers normally used Frozen Food Express's full-truckload (at least 10,000 pounds) service to transport their products to their destinations. This service, almost all under agreements with independent contractors, was nonscheduled and operated over irregular routes within the company's route authority. Small-volume shippers used the company's less-than-truckload service, which consisted of 240 weekly scheduled routes between specified points of origin and termination. LTL service was available between major metropolitan areas within the company's operating territory, including Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Lubbock, Memphis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Omaha, San Francisco, and St. Louis. Frozen Food Express's main terminal, in Lancaster, Texas, was completed in 1970. The company's full-truckload operations accounted for 58 percent of carrier revenue and 40 percent of net operating profit in 1971; LTL operations for 42 percent of carrier revenue and 60 percent of net operating profit. In all, the company was serving more than 3,000 shippers.

Frozen Food Express was a pioneer in its method of handling full-truckload shipments. The company had established independent contractors from the ranks of its employees, offering to sell them a tractor and the means of financing it. The company provided the trailer and the customers; the contractor provided the second driver and the power unit. Compensation was in the form of a percentage of the revenue generated by the shipments carried. The company founded a driver-training school in 1967 that offered a four-week course. LTL service featured compartmentalized trailers, capable of hauling multiple shipments requiring differing temperature levels.

Frozen Food Express's main truckload routes were from Texas northward carrying frozen foods, meats, meat byproducts, margarine, fresh produce, and bakery products; from Chicago and the surrounding Midwest to the southwestern states and California carrying meats, meat products, yeast, bakery products, dairy products, and frozen foods; and from the Gulf Coast-area ports to the Midwest carrying imported bananas and other fruits. The company also carried most of these products and biscuits, milk-chocolate drinks, and salad dressing on short or intermediate hauls between points in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Nonfood items such as blood plasma were transported to California, and resin was transported from California into the Midwestern states.

The number of shippers using Frozen Food Express passed 4,000 in 1974 and 5,000 in 1977. By the end of 1977 the number of weekly LTL runs had reached 390. Revenues increased from $30.6 million in 1973 to $54 million in 1977. Net income rose from $1.4 million in 1973 to nearly $2 million in 1976, then slumped to $1.9 million in 1977. Revenue from full-truckload shipments grew faster than that from LTL shipments during this period, accounting for 66 percent of the total in 1977.

Prior to 1980, interstate trucking was tightly regulated by the federal government. Along with regulated rates, companies were issued permits by the Interstate Commerce Commission for specific routes. A permit almost guaranteed profits for the average trucking company. But the deregulation of the industry created price wars that, even during this period of high inflation, cut freight rates almost in half. Of the 45 publicly owned trucking companies listed before deregulation in the industry's leading trade journal, 33 were gone by 1987.

Full-truckload operations were particularly vulnerable to rate cutting, and so, although 60 percent of Frozen Food Express's annual revenue still was being generated by its full-truckload fleet in 1979, the company sold its full-truckload equipment between 1980 and 1982 and used the proceeds to repay about $7.1 million in debt. In 1982 the company began offering to transport nonperishable cargo, with the exception of explosives, household goods, and commodities in bulk. Between 1983 and 1986 it acquired the operations of four regional less-than-truckload companies and thereby began providing service in all 48 contiguous states. Since all four were losing money at the time, Frozen Food Express's net income (before extraordinary items) fell from $1.7 million in 1983 to $1,000 in 1985. But in 1986 the company reported $1.1 million in net income, with revenue from the LTL operation reaching $59.9 million--more than the company's total revenue in 1983.

Frozen Food Express began 1988 with only 22 company-operated, full-truckload units, supplemented by about 200 owner-operators, but it had begun an ambitious program to field a new fleet of company-owned trucks. Some 109 such trucks were operating by the end of 1988, 440 by the end of 1989, and 660 by the end of 1990. Another 300 trucks were independently contracted in 1989. About 70 percent of the company's LTL operations were still being conducted by independent contractors in 1990.

In 1988 Frozen Food Express acquired certain assets from Lisa Motor Lines, Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas, for $4.6 million. These included operating rights, 32 tractors, 132 refrigerated trailers, and a tank trailer. Company revenues reached $102 million that year, compared to $56.7 million in 1982, and net income was $3.7 million, compared to $1 million in 1982.

By 1991 Frozen Food Express was the nation's largest publicly owned, nationwide full-service motor carrier of perishable commodities in the United States. In 1992 the firm made Forbes's list of the 200 best small companies in America and for the first time attracted serious interest from Wall Street investors.

That year Frozen Food Express purchased the less-than-truckload division of Temperature Controlled Carriage Inc., a refrigerated-truck company based in Nashville, Tennessee, thereby gaining a $12-million-a-year business with 60 trailers, 15 tractors, and terminals in Nashville and Cincinnati. Consolidating this division's freight with Frozen Food Express's terminals in Chicago, Atlanta, and Memphis was "another way we can capture new revenue with very little incremental cost," Stubbs told a Nashville Business Journal reporter.

Stubbs added that Frozen Food Express was planning to expand its distributions to area grocery stores, food brokers, and drugstores from the newly acquired terminals. "The food business is moving to just-in-time inventory control faster each year," he said. "For the customer, it means less warehousing expense and inventory carrying costs." Frozen Food Express confirmed that its primary cargo was prepared foods and meats. By 1992 revenues--only $84.6 million in 1987--had risen in excess of 18 percent annually for the last five years. The company had sales of $195 million and net income of $7.1 million, both records for the third consecutive year.

Frozen Food Express credited a company efficiency program for sharply higher profits since 1990. This effort called for scheduling more loads per week per truck, with schedulers trying to arrange that trucks would have loads to pick up near the site of their most recent delivery. For 1993 the company had net income of $9.4 million on revenues of $227.4 million, both records.

Frozen Food Express began full-truckload, refrigerated service to and from Mexico in 1990, in alliance with a Mexican trucker who picked up goods at the company's new Laredo, Texas, terminal. This business grew at an annual rate of more than 30 percent and, in 1993, the company began offering less-than-truckload refrigerated service to Mexico as well. One special reason for Frozen Food Express to seek this two-way business was that western Mexico's growing season begins in November, during the trucking company's slack season. Full truckloads of Mexican-produced frozen vegetables were being hauled by Frozen Food Express drivers to U.S. processing and packaging plants.

By the spring of 1994 Frozen Food Express's trailers were making regularly scheduled stops every week in more than 7,000 cities and towns. The firm was picking up business from companies like RJR Nabisco and Coors Brewing that were choosing to eliminate their own refrigerated vehicles in order to save on capital and overhead. Frozen Food Express was converting its mainframe computer to a PC-based system, allowing customers to place orders and pay bills electronically. It was installing a satellite tracking system in its trucks at $4,000 per unit to allow dispatchers and customers to find the exact location of a shipment and to relay pickup and delivery times, weather and road information, route and fueling directions to truckers, who could communicate shipment status and other information electronically to dispatchers by means of a keypad.

Frozen Food Express had record sales and profits in 1994 for the fourth straight year, with revenues of $274.6 million and net income of $11.9 million. In 1995 it entered a comprehensive sales and marketing arrangement with Alliance Shippers, a railroad-based intermodal transportation-service company, for temperature-sensitive shipments through the United States, Canada, and Mexico. "Alliance has the high-volume agreements with the railroads and the intermodal expertise," Stubbs told Distribution. Alliance, with about 400 refrigerated containers and trailers, gained access to Frozen Food Express's 2,100 reefers. In return, Stubbs' company gained access to Alliance's extensive sales force.

In 1995 Frozen Food Express's net income dipped to $9.3 million on revenues of $292.3 million, but it eliminated its long-term debt of $9 million. In 1996 net income dipped again, to $8.5 million, on revenues of $311.4 million, of which full truckloads accounted for 60 percent. Management blamed industrywide trucking overcapacity for decreased productivity and downward pressure on full-truckload freight rates. The devaluation of the Mexican peso in December 1994 significantly reduced the flow of consumer products from the United States to Mexico because they became more expensive. And fuel costs, though relatively stable during 1995, increased by 11 percent in 1996.

At the end of 1996 Frozen Food Express had a fleet of 1,202 tractors that were company-owned and 703 provided by owner-operators. There were 2,998 company-owned trailers and 20 provided by owner-operators. Owner-operators normally provided both tractor and driver to pull the company's loaded trailer, receiving a percentage of the revenue from each load. The company had contractors for 443 owner-operated tractors in its full-truckload divisions and 266 in its less-than-truckload operations.

Frozen Food Express, through a subsidiary, was a franchised distributor in 1996 for Wabash trailers and Carrier Transicold-brand truck-and-trailer refrigeration equipment. This subsidiary was engaged in the sales, service, and rental of trailers and a variety of refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment. Such operations accounted for 7.5 percent of the parent company's revenues in 1996.

Frozen Food Express owned corporate offices in Dallas and its primary terminal and maintenance facility near Dallas, on about 60 acres in Lancaster, Texas. Lisa Motor Lines and its divisions, Middle Transportation Co. and Great Western Express, were using a terminal, offices, and a repair shop owned by the parent company in Fort Worth, Texas. Frozen Food Express also owned a cold-storage LTL terminal in Bridgeview, Illinois, near Chicago, and terminals near Orlando, Florida, and Avenel, New Jersey. The company was leasing a terminal or office facility at 26 locations. Some 27 percent of the company's shares of common stock were held by employees. The daughters of Edgar O. Weller held 17 percent and Stubbs 8.35 percent. The company had no long-term debt.

Principal Subsidiaries

Compressors Plus, Inc. (inactive); Conwell Cartage, Inc. (inactive); Conwell Corporation; FFE, Inc.; FFE Transportation Services, Inc.; Frozen Food Express, Inc.; Lisa Motor Lines, Inc.; Middleton Transportation Company (inactive); W & B Refrigeration Service Company.

Further Reading

"Current Corporate Reports," Barron's, February 15, 1993, p. 66.

"Food for Thought," Distribution, March 1995, p. 22.

"Frozen Food Express Shows Gains Without Increases in Rates," Investment Dealers' Digest, October 7, 1975, p. 20.

Hobbs, Bill, "Frozen Food Express to Expand After TCC Buy," Nashville Business Journal, November 2, 1992, p. 8.

Legg, William M., "Frozen Food Express Industries, Inc.," Wall Street Transcript, April 10, 1972, p. 27,967.

Nethery, Ross, "Frozen Food Express Is on a Roll," Dallas Business Journal, August 27, 1993, p. 33.

Palmeri, Christopher, "Reefer Man," Forbes, April 25, 1994, p. 82.

Wood, Sean, "FFE Stock Price, Earnings Keep on Truckin'," Dallas Business Journal, October 30, 1992, p. 41.

— Robert Halasz

In the early twenty-first century, frozen foods are an important component of meals prepared and served in both homes and restaurants. They have expanded the kind and quality of meals served and continue to influence food preparations and consumption in this country. The variety of frozen foods in the market reflects the wide use of frozen foods in households. These include ethnic, vegetarian, fast foods, imported gourmet, dietary, and many others.

Early use of freezing occurred in parts of the world, such as Canada, where temperatures in winter drop below freezing for significant periods of time. When hunters brought game animals home in winter, it was possible to freeze the catch by using the outdoor environment as the freezer. It was also convenient on farms where butchering was done. These meats were frozen and used before temperatures moderated. Experiences like this demonstrated the advantages of freezing. Because the storage time was dependent on the weather, this procedure had limitations.

The advantages of freezing as a method of preservation prompted researchers to develop freezing technology. In 1842, a patent for freezing foods by immersion in a brine of ice and salt was issued to Henry Benjamin in Britain. Fish was first frozen in the United States in 1865, and in 1917, Clarence Birdseye began word on freezing foods for retail trade. The use of different refrigerants was one of the early needs examined. The possibility of freons as refrigerants was well received for industrial and consumer applications and led to their early incorporation into household freezers. These early models offered were large in size and were designed to be used for the game and butchering needs of farm families at that time. But soon after their introduction, it was obvious that they were extensively used to store fruits and vegetables, an attractive application for farm households who were growing their own produce. These early models were great successes, and they launched the freezing preservation of fruits and vegetables in this country.

The possibility of freezing preservation of fruits and vegetables became an important interest in the United States, catching the attention of many city apartment dwellers and suburban families who lived in small houses. Unable to accommodate the large-size freezers that appliance manufactures were selling to farm families, these householders teamed up with their neighbors to develop community freezers, where families could rent freezer space in a large freezer-locker rental operation. Although this solved the problem, it was less than convenient.

Questions were raised about the effect of freezing meats, fruits, and vegetables on the quality of the thawed product, including its nutrient retention. The USDA and land grant universities responded to this concern with research studies to assess the impact of freezing on nutrients in fruits, vegetables, and meat, which are summarized by Karmas and Harris. The results of this work showed the nutritional advantages of frozen foods and gave recommendations for freezing methods aimed at retaining maximum quality and nutritional value.

During World War II, homemakers began to join the U.S. workforce in large numbers and appreciated the timesaving advantages of frozen food. The appliance and food industries noted the acceptance by consumers of both freezing preservation of foods and the small freezer sections in household refrigerators. Early models of refrigerators did not offer separate compressor units for the freezer section. As a result, these appliances provided only limited freezing capacity and ability to freeze. The development of appliances with freezing sections that had separate compressors that allowed the freezing section to successfully hold frozen foods in the frozen condition had a major impact on the consumer's ability to store food. The food industry has also responded to the abilities of the new refrigerator models to hold frozen food by introducing frozen foods such as entrees, vegetable, breads, fruits, desserts, juices, snack foods, and ice cream. The refrigerator and freezer combination appliance fits into small spaces and is especially appreciated by those living in apartments and small homes. In the early twenty-first century, few refrigerators do not include a freezer on a separate compressor.

In microwave heating, foods are placed in an electromagnetic field when they are positioned in the oven cavity and the microwave energy is turned on. Heat is generated by molecular friction among the free water molecules in the food load. Since a frozen food has a very small amount of unfrozen water that attracts the microwave energy first, the heat is generated in a small part of the food load and is rapidly absorbed by the frozen part. In frozen foods, a large part of the water is in the form of ice. While water readily absorbs microwaves, ice does not. Some of the water in frozen foods does not freeze; this may be due to the salt content. The unfrozen water absorbs microwaves quickly in the microwave appliance. As a consequence, the use of microwaves to thaw and cook food may result in "runaway heating," a situation in which the unfrozen water containing salts is boiling while next to it, areas of ice exist. To prevent this, a defrost program is recommended; this feature exposes the food load to microwave energy for a short time, then turns microwaves off for a slightly longer time, allowing the heat to be conducted to the ice. This cycle is repeated until thawing is completed and does not usually produce runaway heating.

Tv Dinner

In 1954 C. A. Swanson & Sons introduced TV dinners to consumers in the United States. Gerald Thomas, an executive at Swanson, conceived the idea after the company unexpectedly found itself with 520,000 pounds of unsold Thanksgiving Day turkeys (information available at any website on popular culture of the 1950s). The turkeys were being stored in refrigerated railroad cars moving coast to coast across the country because there was not enough storage space in the company's warehouses. Thomas also conceived of the idea of using aluminum trays with three separate compartments. Based on his experiences in World War II, when soldiers ate from a tray, commonly known as "mess gear," he wanted to solve the problem of different foods running together in their serving tray. He observed the lightweight metal trays then being utilized by the airline food industry to heat meals and adopted them for use with the TV dinner.

The TV dinner concept was not met with immediate approval or enthusiasm at Swanson, though, where two more traditional-thinking brothers owned and operated the company. It was not until the older brother, who opposed the idea, went on vacation that Thomas's idea became a reality. The first dinner contained turkey, corn bread stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, and buttered peas. Its packaging was designed to look like a TV. Because most consumers did not own freezers in 1954, the dinners were usually consumed on the day they were purchased.

The market for TV dinners, or "frozen food dinners or entrées" (as they have come to be described almost exclusively by the frozen food industry since the 1960s), has continued to expand over the past five decades, reflecting the values and concerns of a larger American society. The initial production order by Swanson was for five thousand dinners, at a cost of 98 cents to consumers. Within a year, Swanson sold more than ten million turkey TV dinners. To ensure successful sales of the TV dinner, Swanson created an ad campaign featuring Sue Swanson, who "re-assured housewives they needn't feel guilty about not cooking homemade meals for their families." During the 1960s the sale of frozen food entrées rose dramatically after it became well publicized that the first American astronauts to land on the moon ate prepared meals while in space. In the 1950s and 1960s these entrées featured mostly comfort foods, similar to the homemade dinners that "Mom" would make, such as meatloaf or fried chicken combined with mashed potatoes.

The microwave oven was then invented in the 1960s, and it became a standard feature in most American homes by the 1980s. This development further increased the convenience and attractiveness of TV dinners to consumers. The 1980s witnessed a rise in the production of ethnic, low-calorie, and budget entrées, whereas the 1990s saw an increase in the production of gourmet entréees, "kid cuisine," and "hearty portions." The new millennium has so far indicated increasing growth in the production of frozen food entrées that are either healthy or "wholesome."

The frozen dinner is currently the largest category within the frozen food market; it currently accounts for over $5 billion worth of supermarket sales annually. One of the ten most popular dinners served in American homes is now a TV dinner, and nearly half of all Americans purchase frozen entrées. Those individuals most likely to consume TV dinners are "blue-collar families, older couples, and retired singles," whereas those least likely to consume TV dinners are either more wealthy families living in the suburbs or poorer people living in the country (see American Demographics for further information). In addition, frozen dinners are being delivered increasingly across the country to individuals who are homebound because of poor health or functional impairment. Survey findings reported by the Frozen Food Institute in 2002 reveal that certain frozen foods are among the top three items that Americans would not want to live without.

Julie Locher

Bibliography

Burnett, Barbara. Every Woman's Legal Guide. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983.

Frozen Food Institute. Available at http://www.affi.com.

Jay, James M. Modern Food Microbiology. 6th ed. Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen, 2000.

Keene, Linda. "Fame for the Inventor of the TV Dinner Is Frozen in Time." Seattle Times, 24 September 1999.

Institute of Food Technologists. "Effects of Food Processing on Nutritive Values: A Scientific Status Summary by the Institute of Food Technologists Expert Panel on Food Safety and Nutrition and the Committee on Public Information." Food Technology 40, 12 (1986): 109–116.

Karmas, Endel, and Harris, Robert S. Nutritional Evaluation ofFood Processing. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1988.

"Penguin Power." American Demographics 21, issue 3 (March 1999): 21, 14–15.

"Swanson TV Dinners." Fifties Web Pop History—TV Dinner. Available at http://www.fiftiesweb.com/pop/tv-dinner.htm.

—Gertrude Ambruster

Freezing food preserves it from the time it is prepared to the time it is eaten. Since early times, farmers, fishermen, and trappers have preserved their game and produce in unheated buildings during the winter season.^[1] Freezing food slows down decomposition by turning residual moisture into ice, inhibiting the growth of most bacterial species. In the food commodity industry, the process is called IQF or Individually Quick Frozen.

Preserving food in domestic kitchens during the 20th and 21st centuries is achieved using household freezers. Accepted advice to householders was to freeze food on the day of purchase. An initiative by a supermarket group in 2012 (backed by the UK's Waste & Resources Action Programme) promotes advising the freezing of food "as soon as possible up to the product's 'use by' date". The Food Standards Agency was reported to support the change, providing food has been stored correctly up to that time.^[2]

A frozen processed foods aisle at a supermarket in Canada.

Contents 1 Preservatives 2 History 3 Packaging 4 Effects on nutrients 4.1 Vitamin content of frozen foods 5 Efficiency 6 Reaction 7 Weblinks 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References

Preservatives

Frozen products do not require any added preservatives because microorganisms do not grow when the temperature of the food is below -9.5°C, which is sufficient on its own in preventing food spoilage. Long-term preservation of food may call for food storage at even lower temperatures. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), a tasteless and odorless stabilizer, is typically added to frozen food because it does not adulterate the quality of the product. ^[3]

History

Beginning in 1929, Clarence Birdseye offered his quick-frozen foods to the public. Birdseye got the idea during fur-trapping expeditions to Labrador in 1912 and 1916, where he saw the natives use freezing to preserve foods.^[4] Modern attempts at refrigeration began in the early 20th century in the meat packing industry. More advanced attempts include food frozen for Eleanor Roosevelt on her trip to Russia. Other experiments, involving orange juice, ice cream and vegetables were conducted by the military near the end of World War II.

Packaging

Frozen food packaging must maintain its integrity throughout machine filling, sealing, freezing, storage, transportation, thawing, and often cooking.^[5] As many frozen foods are cooked in a microwave oven, manufacturers have developed packaging that can go straight from freezer to the microwave.

In 1974, the first differential heating container (DHC) was sold to the public. A DHC is a sleeve of metal designed to allow frozen foods to receive the correct amount of heat. Various sized apertures were positioned around the sleeve. The consumer would put the frozen dinner into the sleeve according to what needed the most heat. This ensured proper cooking.^[6]

Today there are multiple options for packaging frozen foods. Boxes, cartons, bags, pouches, heat-in-bag pouches, lidded trays and pans, crystallized PET trays, and composite and plastic cans.^[7]

Scientists are continually researching new aspects of frozen food packaging. Active packaging offers a host of new technologies that can actively sense and then neutralize the presence of bacteria or other harmful species. Active packaging can extend shelf-life, maintain product safety, and help preserve the food over a longer period of time. Several functions of active packaging are being researched:

• Oxygen scavengers
• Time Temperature Indicators and digital temperature dataloggers
• Antimicrobials
• Carbon Dioxide controllers
• Microwave susceptors
• Moisture control: Water activity, Moisture vapor transmission rate, etc.
• Flavor enhancers
• Odor generators
• Oxygen-permeable films
• Oxygen generators^[8]
• Validation of cold chain

Effects on nutrients

Vitamin content of frozen foods

• Vitamin C: Usually lost in a higher concentration than any other vitamin.^[9] A study was performed on peas to determine the cause of vitamin C loss. A vitamin loss of ten percent occurred during the blanching phase with the rest of the loss occurring during the cooling and washing stages.^[10] The vitamin loss was not actually accredited to the freezing process. Another experiment was performed involving peas and lima beans. Frozen and canned vegetables were both used in the experiment. The frozen vegetable were stored at −10 °F (−23 °C) and the canned vegetables were stored at room temperature (75 °F). After 0, 3, 6, and 12 months of storage, the vegetables were analyzed with and without cooking. O'Hara, the scientist performing the experiment said, "From the view point of the vitamin content of the two vegetables when they were ready for the plate of the consumer, there did not appear to be any marked advantages attributable to method of preservation, frozen storage, processed in a tin, or processed in glass."^[11]
• Vitamin B₁ (Thiamin): A vitamin loss of 25 percent is normal. Thiamin is easily soluble in water and is destroyed by heat.^[12]
• Vitamin B₂ (Riboflavin): Not much research has been done to see how much freezing affects Riboflavin levels. Studies that have been performed are inconclusive; one study found an 18 percent vitamin loss in green vegetables, while another determined a 4 percent loss.^[13] It is commonly accepted that the loss of Riboflavin has to do with the preparation for freezing rather than the actual freezing process itself.
• Vitamin A (Carotene): There is little loss of carotene during preparation for freezing and freezing of most vegetables. Much of the vitamin loss is incurred during the extended storage period.^[14]

Efficiency

Freezing is an effective form of food preservation because the pathogens that cause food spoilage are killed or do not grow very rapidly at reduced temperatures. The process is less effective in food preservation than are thermal techniques, such as boiling, because pathogens are more likely to be able to survive cold temperatures rather than hot temperatures.^[15] One of the problems surrounding the use of freezing as a method of food preservation is the danger that pathogens deactivated (but not killed) by the process will once again become active when the frozen food thaws.

Foods may be preserved for several months by freezing. Long-term frozen storage requires a constant temperature of -18 °C (0 °F) or less, a temperature which many non-industrial freezers cannot achieve.^[16]

Reaction

According to a study, an American consumes on average 71 frozen foods a year, most of which are pre-cooked frozen meals.^[17] Many food critics host shows dedicated to the tasting and reviewing of frozen foods, the web show Freezerburns being one of the more notable ones.^[18]

Weblinks

Media related to Frozen food at Wikimedia Commons

See also

• Refrigerator

Notes

1. ^ Tressler, Evers. The Freezing Preservation of Foods Pg 213-217
2. ^ Smithers, Rebecca (February 10, 2012). "Sainsbury's changes food freezing advice in bid to cut food waste". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/10/sainsbury-food-freezing-advice-waste. Retrieved February 10, 2012. "Long-standing advice to consumers to freeze food on the day of purchase is to be changed by a leading supermarket chain, as part of a national initiative to further reduce food waste. [...] instead advise customers to freeze food as soon as possible up to the product's 'use by' date. The initiative is backed by the government's waste advisory body, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) [...] Bob Martin, food safety expert at the Food Standards Agency, said: "Freezing after the day of purchase shouldn't pose a food safety risk as long as food has been stored in accordance with any instructions provided. [...]"" 
3. ^ Arsdel, Michael, Robert. Quality and Stability of Frozen Foods: TIme-Temperature Tolerance and its Significance. Pg. 67-69
4. ^ "Frozen Foods". Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/birdseye.html. 
5. ^ Decareau, Robert. Microwave Foods: New Product Development. Pg 45-48
6. ^ Whelan, Stare. Panic in the Pantry: Facts and Fallacies About the Food You Buy
7. ^ Russell, Gould. Food Preservatves. Pg 314
8. ^ Sun, Da-Wen. Handbook of Frozen Food Processing and Packaging. Pg 786-792
9. ^ Tressler, Evers. The Freezing Preservation of Foods. Pg 620-624
10. ^ Tressler, Evers. The Freezing Preservation of Foods. Pg 961-964
11. ^ Tressler, Evers. The Freezing Preservation of Foods. Pg 627
12. ^ Gould, Grahame. New Methods of Food Preservation. Pg 237-239
13. ^ Tressler, Evers. Pg. 973-976
14. ^ Tressler, Evers. The Freezing Preservation of Foods. Pg. 976-978
15. ^ Mathlouthi, M. Food Packaging and Preservation. Pg 112-115
16. ^ Tressler, Evers, Evers. Into the Freezer - and Out. Pg 56-82
17. ^ Harris, J. Michael and Rimma Shipstova, Consumer Demand for Convenience Foods: Demographics and Expenditures, AgEcon, p. 26, http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/46585/2/38030026.pdf, retrieved 16 July 2011 
18. ^ Stock, Sue (18 April 2010). "Web viewers warm up to frozen food show". News & Observer. http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/04/18/440825/web-viewers-warm-up-to-frozen.html?storylink=misearch. Retrieved 10 July 2011. 

References

• Arsdel, Wallace, B. Van, Michael, J Copley, and Robert, L. Olson. Quality and Stability of Frozen Foods: TIme-Temperature Tolerance and its Significance. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons,INC, 1968.
• "Clarence Birdseye." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 19. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 25-27. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Brigham Young University - Utah. Nov. 3 2009 <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=GVRL&u=byu_main>
• Copson, David. Microwave Heating. 2nd ed.. Westport, CT: The AVI Publishing Company, INC., 1975.
• Decareau, Robert. Microwave Foods: New Product Development. Trumbull, CT: Food & Nutrition Press, INC., 1992.
• Gould, Grahame. New Methods of Food Preservation. New York, NY: Chapman & Hall, 2000.
• Mathlouthi, Mohamed. Food Packaging and Preservation. New York, NY: Chapman & Hall, 1994.*^Robinson, Richard. Microbiology of Frozen Foods. New York, NY: Elsevier Applied Science Publishers LTD, 1985.
• Russell, Nicholas J., and Grahame W. Gould. Food Preservatives. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2003.
• Sun, Da-Wen. Handbook of Frozen Food Processing and Packaging. Boca Raton, Fl: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2006.
• Tressler, Donald K., Clifford F. Evers, and Barbara, Hutchings Evers. Into the Freezer - and Out. 2nd ed. New York, NY: The AVI Publishing Company, INC., 1953.
• Tressler, Donald K., and Clifford F. Evers. The Freezing Preservation of Foods. 3rd ed. 1st volume. Westport, CT: The AVI Publishing Company, INC., 1957.
• Whelan, Elizabeth M., and Fredrick J. Stare. Panic in the Pantry: Facts and Fallacies About the Food You Buy. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998.

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