Vacuum Cooling Technology for the Agri-food Industry:Past, Present and Future

摘要

The principle of vacuum cooling is based on rapid evaporation of part of the moisture of theproduct under vacuum. Vacuum cooling can be used to shorten processing time, extend product shelflife, and improve product quality and safety. Traditionally, vacuum cooling is used in the agriculturalindustry to pre-cool leafy vegetables and mushroom in order to rapidly remove field heats. Recently,vacuum cooling has been applied to cool viscous food products and bakery products in the foodindustry, and tuna in the fish industry.Food safety concern has driven cooked meat manufacturers to explore new method to reduce coolingtime, which has consequently led to a comprehensive research study of vacuum cooling of largecooked meat joints in the past few years including mathematical modelling of the vacuum coolingprocess using finite element method and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), especially thoroughresearch work has been carried out by the Food Refrigeration and Computerised Food Technology(FRCFT) Research Group in National University of Ireland. Currently, research studies on vacuumcooling of ready meal components have also been conducted in FRCFT Research Group.This paper first discusses the principles and equipment of vacuum cooling and critically analyses theadvantages and disadvantages of this technique. Much effort is then spent on reviewing thedevelopment of this technology for the agri-food industry, in particularly, the latest research resultsfrom the FRCFT Research Group, which have carried out extensive research work since 1997 fundedby the Non-Commissioned Food Research Programme and the Food Institutional ResearchMeasures administered by the Irish Government Department of Agriculture and Food. Futureprospects of research and development of vacuum cooling technology is finally addressed.