Discover how process gases can positively impact your process efficiency
Cooling Power of N2 and CO2
Chilling Meat and Poultry with ACCU-CHILL
Building greater flexibility into the meat and poultry value chain while
meeting market demands for food safety, productivity, and quality - with ACCU-CHILL® cryogenic chilling innovations.
Benefits of Cryogenic Chilling
Products such as meat and poultry are prone to rapid bacterial growth at elevated temperatures. Chilling is one of the most effective weapons in the fight against bacterial activity. Rapid chilling of meat and poultry products can contribute even further to food safety, helping to minimize contamination risks particularly in burgers, sliced meats, chopped or diced meats, cut meats (such as cutlets) and different cuts of poultry. In addition, rapid chilling brings more flexibility to the meat and poultry value chain, helping to eliminate bottlenecks in cold storage rooms, for instance. Last but not least, cryogenic chilling helps to preserve the natural quality of meat and poultry by locking in freshness, reducing product yield losses, and maintaining flavor and taste.
We have developed a variety of applications and devices that bring the environmental and flexibility and quality benefits of gaseous, liquid and solid cryogenic chilling agents to stationary and mobile applications for meat and poultry. Cryogens such as liquid nitrogen (LIN) and liquid carbon dioxide (LIC) are environmentally sound alternatives to conventional cooling processes, which often involve potentially harmful refrigerants, large quantities of water, or dust and fumes. Because they are inert, these cryogenic gases also mitigate the risk of fire or explosion.
Our ACCU-CHILL chilling systems give you precise temperature control over products such as ground/minced beef and chicken so they can be easily formed into hamburger patties or nuggets, for instance.
During transit, for instance, cryogenic liquid gases are an effective, flexible and low-noise way of maintaining the precise temperature of chilled meat and chicken products. During processing, CO2 snow, also known as solid CO2 or dry ice, is a very effective and easy-to-use cooling medium. At atmospheric pressure, liquid carbon dioxide converts to solid carbon dioxide snow at -79ºC (-109ºF). The solid phase of CO2 makes it extremely effective for meat/poultry products in mixers, blenders, containers (such as E1 and E2 meat crates), cartons and combos.