Frozen Food Producers Meet Surging Demand for ‘Elevated In-Home Experiences’

Frozen Food Industry Trends

• The U.S. frozen food market is the largest in the world, comprising 39% of the global market. (Euromonitor International 2024)
• Ownership of air fryers continues to grow with newer dual basket-style air fryers growing by 22% year over year. (Circana, LLC, National Eating Trends, 2023-24)
• 28% of grocery store trips include at least one frozen food item. (Circana, LLC, 52-week study ending Nov. 3, 2024)

How to increase production to meet consumer demand

So, how are frozen food producers leveraging new features or technology to increase product volume in 2025? And what are the challenges ahead for companies?

Spiral and individual quick freezing (IQF) tunnel freezers are essential for high-capacity production for frozen food producers. IQF freezers use a fluidized conveyor belt or tray to individually freeze tiny products, such as fruits or vegetables. At the same time, spiral systems tackle high-capacity production and have a smaller footprint for food plants that have limited floor space. 

“There’s just not room for expansion in today’s food plant, and it’s hard to expand the walls in the U.S.,” says Chris Johnson, Director of Business Development at Linde.

Linde, a supplier of liquid CO₂ and liquid nitrogen, offers tunnel and spiral chilling equipment. Cryogenic systems operate at -150° F, freeze quickly, and are smaller systems compared to larger, mechanical tunnel freezing technology. “If companies want to increase production, one way is to add a cryogenic tunnel in front of an existing spiral while not eating up floor space,” says Johnson.

“Plant space is the biggest hurdle for our customers looking to increase production, particularly in existing plants,” says Gill. “Freezers are already one of the largest footprint assets in the plant, so looking at ways to make the freezers as efficient as possible in freezing products to gain throughput to limit increases in physical size is a key focus.”

Sequential defrost technology is another way to increase volume within a plant’s footprint. This technology allows producers to shut down individual fans in separate chambers sequentially and defrost these zones one at a time, while other freezing zones continue working.

“What has changed over the last five years is more customers are asking for the sequential defrost technology in the design of their machines,” says Osterstrom. “Food producers want longer production time between defrost cycles for increased production.”

Frozen food producers are modernizing equipment to automate sanitation and extend maintenance staff. Image courtesy of Advanced Equipment, Inc.

ProFood World recently reported how Foodhills employed this sequential defrosting at its facilities producing frozen peas and how the company moved to three-day production cycles. “Before, we had 12 to 14 hours of continuous production, but now we can produce for 72 hours,” explains Jan-Inge Nyström, Production Manager at Foodhills. “We have a short stop after 36 hours for cleaning and defrosting, which takes around two hours. Otherwise, it has fulfilled our capacity goals with continuous production—that has been good with this freezer.”

“Rather than purchasing equipment that can do more per hour at a higher cost, customers are looking at equipment that can run more safely between stopping (or downtime) to service and clean,” says Sheridan. “Running a line with lower hourly capacity for more hours or days between stops is generally considered the lowest cost to increase productivity.” 

In addition to IQF tunnel and spiral freezing units, food producers are adding impingement freezers for thinner products such as egg patties, bacon chilling, and raw hamburger, while contact freezers are used to crust-freeze raw poultry or fish to prevent belt marking for appearance reasons.

Increased monitoring for pathogens and uptime

The trend of remote monitoring is present in the freezing and chilling segment, especially when it comes to food safety. In January 2024, the PMMI Industry Report on Services and Monitoring in the CPG segment showed that “54% of food and beverage end users have increased their investment in remote services and monitoring since COVID ended.”

The frozen food segment is no different. “Producers are focused on minimizing the cold-to-cold time of the freezer with the most efficient use of hot gas and steam to warm up the freezer as well as limiting water and chemical usage to clean the freezer during sanitation,” says Gill. “End users can measure and monitor in real-time each step of the process to drive out any unnecessary waste in time and materials.”

Inspecting and automation are also on the rise. “Customers are also requesting vision systems that can quickly assess product shapes, color, and whether quality is correct,” adds Osterstrom. Also, OEMs are adding sensors to monitor motor amperage and vibration in specific system areas, and suppliers are offering services for remote troubleshooting. 

In addition to freezing equipment, food producers are targeting efficient use of air by limiting infiltration/exfiltration of warm, moist air areas from the surrounding plant environment that would create unnecessary frost load, thus decreasing energy consumption and extending equipment runtimes.

Gill says, “Continued increases in food safety standards have driven a focus on innovation when it comes to hygienic design, cleaning systems, and enhancements on measuring and monitoring pathogens in and around the freezer.”