Project

Frozen like Fresh

The frozen potato & vegetables sector in Europe is a sector with a yearly output of more than 300 Mtonnes of fresh frozen product. A new consortium aims to further improve the sustainability of these chains.

Improving product quality while maximizing sustainability

Frozen vegetables are a sustainable source of year-round healthy and tasty products to consumers. To realise a next improvement in sustainability, the amount of resources, such as energy, heat, water use and/or transportation distance, needs to be reduced. To make it a success, both the sustainability of the process and the value of the resulting products should be increased. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to further improve the product quality, while maximizing sustainability at chain level significantly, meaning a reduction of ecological footprint of the frozen product and reduction of food losses.

Approach

The consortium in this project will perform a yearly scan on current processes (a.o. conditions, quality checks, monitoring activities, energy consumptions per phase) in the frozen fries and vegetables chain. Hotspots in energy consumption, and potential process improvements will be identified and related to product quality. Experiments will be done at lab scale and in practice to develop understanding of relationships between processing and product quality at point of consumption. Based on the collected data, models are created to calculate the contribution of innovations in the process to the identified KPIs.

Envisioned results

  • A digital twin for assessing the effect of activities in the frozen food chain in terms of product quality, energy use, water use, greenhouse gas emission per processing step in the cooling and freezing activities.
  • Library of models that help to better understand the impact of production steps on the product and the impact of changing parameters to a more sustainable setting on product quality.
  • Roadmap for realising Future-Proof Frozen Food Chains in the Netherlands and Europe.
  • Overview of sensors that can measure product and process parameters in a real-time non-destructive way.
  • A set of popular publications, LinkedIn posts, workshops aimed at involving the cooling and freezing sector concerning the implementation of the Roadmap towards a Future-Proof Frozen Food Chain.
  • Scientific publications on the impact of sustainable process settings (energy, CO2, water use) on product quality.

If you wish for more information on the project or if you have interest in related topics, please contact Rian Timmermans.