Novel synergistic freezing methods and technologies for enhanced food product quality: A critical review

Abstract Freezing has a long history as an effective food preservation method, but traditional freezing technologies have quality limitations, such as the potential for water loss and/or shrinkage and/or nutrient loss, etc. in the frozen products. Due to enhanced quality preservation and simpler thawing operation, synergistic technologies for freezing are emerging as the optimal methods for frozen food processing. This article comprehensively reviewed the recently developed synergistic technologies for freezing and pretreatment, for example, ultrasonication, cell alive system freezing, glass transition temperature regulation, high pressure freezing, pulsed electric field pretreatment, osmotic pretreatment, and antifreeze protein pretreatment, etc. The mechanisms and applications of these techniques are outlined briefly here. Though the application of new treatments in freezing is relatively mature, reducing the energy consumption in the application of these new technologies is a key issue for future research. It is also necessary to consider scale‐up issues involved in large‐scale applications as much of the research effort so far is limited to laboratory or pilot scale. For future development, intelligent freezing should be given more attention. Freezing should automatically identify and respond to different freezing conditions according to the nature of different materials to achieve more efficient freezing. Practical Application This paper provides a reference for subsequent production and research, and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of different novel synergistic technologies, which points out the direction for subsequent industry development and research. At the same time, it provides new ideas for the freezing industry.