Most fruit and vegetables are harvested during a short period of the year, whilst consumers want their favorite flavour to be available year round. This can only be achieved by capturing the goodness of fruits and vegetables and protect it against spoilage. SVZ can offer you a number of preservation techniques, from freezing to reducing the water activity by concentrating. It’s your quality demands and production process which determines which one works best for you. The ones SVZ is able to offer are described below.
Frozen
Freezing is a way of preserving food products that has been used for many years and is a very effective method. An advantage of this type of preservation is its long shelf life (at least 24 months at - 18°C for purees and concentrates). However a disadvantage of frozen food products is the need for cold storage and the defrosting time before use.
SVZ is offering an alternative to the traditional block freezing. With a unique process we are able to freeze purees within 30 minutes after sieving. The puree comes in ice cube sized pieces. The advantages of this product over the traditional block freezing are:
- Lower micro-count
- Less colour loss
- Less flavour deterioration
But it’s not just the premium quality that makes the difference. Other advantages of the frozen puree cubes are:
- Easier to handle
- Less waste
- Short defrosting time
For those who prefer drums over cartons, we are able to offer the best of both worlds. By mixing the frozen puree cubes with the liquid puree in a drum the freezing time is just a fraction of the conventional method.
And specifically for our vegetables…
Before the whole or cut vegetables are frozen they can be blanched as an option. Besides the reduction in micro organisms, the blanching process gives a change in texture, which is desired for certain applications. Especially for kidney beans SVZ has developed a unique cooking process. This avoids a further heat treatment by our clients and therefore the kidney beans can be used directly in ready meals (so called ‘ready meal quality’).
Vegetable juice concentrates have to be frozen as on average the Brix level is not high enough to be self-preserving and they have a higher pH than fruits.
Aseptic
The aseptic production process of SVZ is optimally tuned for maintaining colour, flavour and aroma. Although aseptic products are shelf stable at room temperature concerning microbiology, it is advised to store aseptic products between 0 and 4 °C for maintaining colour. The shelf life of aseptic products varies from 3 months to 12 months, depending on the type of product. A choice can be made: products are pasteurized, but for the high pH products (mainly vegetables), we offer pasteurized & acidification or sterilized without acidification. Acidification can be done by ascorbic acid and/or lemon juice concentrate.
Preserved
On request preservatives can be added to customer specification.
Infusion
