Every meal is an experience but between balancing busy schedules and a lot of priorities, it can be hard to find time for the basics, like cooking. This is why frozen foods were invented. Now a staple in every diet, frozen foods combine the best of familiar flavours and recipes with unparalleled convenience. All that time you used to spend on preparing individual ingredients can now be spent enjoying a delicious meal.
With COVID-19 posing restrictions on dining out in restaurants, it turns out that frozen foods aren’t growing even more popular just because of their convenience. Many families have turned to stocking up on these treats in place of dining out. Whether it’s chicken wings or burgers, families are recreating their restaurant favourites to get a fresh, nutritious fix of their favourites right at home.
How to Keep Frozen Food Fresh in Stores
Customers love frozen foods because they are convenient to prepare but are they happy with their purchase? The biggest challenge in selling frozen foods is ensuring their taste and flavours keep well the longer they stay in the freezer. The right use of a commercial freezer plays a major role in that.
When loading up a commercial freezer, label all the items according to their contents. Make sure that foods like meat are tightly wrapped to prevent freezer burn that affects their taste, and use freezer containers to help maintain their quality, shape and texture. Keep track of each item’s sell-by date to avoid selling merchandise past their expiry and causing food safety issues like foodborne illnesses.
When serving or selling frozen food, make sure to include reminders for thawing food properly. Avoid thawing food at room temperature to prevent spoiling, which causes both costly inventory losses and impact on customer satisfaction and safety.
How Long Food And Ingredients Can Stay Frozen
Freezing food is one of the most effective ways to manage inventory: you can prepare large quantities for sale and store them for longer periods of time. But it’s not enough to simply load up your freezer — how you use a commercial freezer determines how well frozen foods keep.
Plan for storage ahead of time, and stock food items accordingly. Make sure that these are tightly wrapped and sealed to keep out frost and moisture, and prevent cross-contamination. Keep track of when foods are frozen to ensure they keep well and maintain their quality. Check out this guide:
- Fruits and vegetables: 8 to 12 months
- Meat: 3 to 12 months
- Dairy products: 3 to 9 months
- Fish: 2 to 6 months
- Poultry: 4 to 9 months
Defrosting Process For a Healthy Meal
Storing frozen foods properly is the key to maintaining their freshness and quality. When they’re tightly wrapped and sealed against frost and moisture, stored separately to prevent cross-contamination, and used by their sell-by date, frozen foods are some of the most delicious and convenient best-sellers that customers keep coming back for.
To enjoy frozen foods, make sure they’re defrosted properly. Pre-packed frozen foods come with defrost and heating instructions from the manufacturer, so check the label prior to preparation. Some foods can be heated directly from the freezer, while others need to be properly thawed and defrosted before cooking. Plan meals ahead to give yourself enough time to thaw and prepare frozen foods, and you’ll enjoy your meal whenever you want.
The Benefits of Frozen Foods
How do you like your food? A nice home-cooked meal or your favourite restaurant dish is one of the best ways to enjoy a meal. But between long days and the need to budget smartly, it’s not always possible to eat like this every day. Frozen foods offer the same enjoyable but convenient experience. All it takes is a box or vacuum-sealed bag of your favourite treats cooked ahead of time and stored safely in the freezer.
Without a doubt, frozen foods are highly convenient, allowing you to enjoy your favourite meals but without the hassle of long prep and cooking times. Plus, freezing foods ahead of time allows them to last longer without needing preservatives. That’s because freezing locks in their flavours, colours and textures, essentially suspending these in time until they’re thawed and cooked or heated. By freezing food, you can also reduce waste, since these keep longer — even well past their typical sell-by date in refrigerated storage.
Thinking of preparing or stocking up on frozen foods? Follow this guide for everything you need to know to store frozen foods and enjoy delicious meals.