Case of INNOTECH Vacuum Freeze-Drying Equipment Assisting in Chicken Breast Freeze-Drying

Shandong Flavoryland Food Co., Ltd., in order to meet the growing market demand for high-quality pet snacks, decided to expand its product line and launch a pet snack mainly made of freeze-dried chicken breast. The enterprise expected to maximize the retention of nutritional components in chicken breast, improve the product's taste and quality, and enhance its competitiveness in the market through advanced freeze-drying technology.​

Challenges of Freeze-Drying Process​

Chicken breast is rich in protein, but in the freeze-drying process, if the process is not properly controlled, problems such as dry and tough meat, nutrient loss, and poor rehydration are likely to occur. Moreover, as the enterprise plans to carry out large-scale production, it poses strict requirements on the production capacity, stability, and energy consumption control of the freeze-drying equipment.​

INNOTECH Vacuum Freeze-Drying Equipment Solution​

Equipment Selection​
The enterprise finally selected the IN-120 vacuum freeze-drying equipment from INNOTECH Food Machinery Co., Ltd. This equipment has the following advantages:​
Efficient Refrigeration System: It can quickly cool the chicken breast to an appropriate freezing temperature, forming uniform and fine ice crystals, laying a good foundation for the subsequent sublimation process. It can reduce the temperature of chicken breast to -45°C within 2 hours, ensuring fine ice crystals and minimizing damage to the meat structure.​
High Vacuum Guarantee: The equipment can create a stable high-vacuum environment, accelerate the sublimation of ice crystals, and shorten the freeze-drying cycle. Its vacuum system can stably maintain the vacuum degree at 10Pa, greatly improving the sublimation efficiency.​
Precise Heating System: Precisely control the heating temperature to ensure that the chicken breast can absorb sufficient heat to promote sublimation during the sublimation process without suffering from nutrient loss or meat quality deterioration due to excessive temperature. In the sublimation stage, the heating temperature can be accurately controlled within the range of ±1°C.​
Large-Capacity Design: It can meet the enterprise's large-scale production needs and process a large amount of chicken breast at a time. The drying chamber of the equipment has a volume of 120 cubic meters, and multiple batches of chicken breast can be placed for freeze-drying at the same time.​

Freeze-Drying Process​

Raw Material Pretreatment: Select fresh and high-quality chicken breast, remove fascia, fat and other impurities, wash it thoroughly, and cut it into uniform slices or small pieces to facilitate subsequent freeze-drying treatment.​
Pre-Freezing Stage: Put the pretreated chicken breast into the drying chamber of the IN-120 vacuum freeze-drying equipment. The equipment quickly starts the refrigeration system and reduces the temperature of the chicken breast below the eutectic point temperature within 2 hours, completely freezing the water into ice crystals. The fine ice crystals formed in this process create favorable conditions for the subsequent sublimation.​

Sublimation Drying Stage: After the chicken breast is pre-frozen, the vacuum system of the equipment starts to work and quickly pumps the pressure in the drying chamber to the set high vacuum degree. At the same time, the precise heating system is started to provide the heat required for sublimation to the chicken breast at an appropriate rate, causing the ice crystals to directly sublimate into water vapor. In this stage, the equipment precisely maintains the vacuum degree and heating temperature through the intelligent control system to ensure the stable and efficient progress of the sublimation process, which lasts for 18 hours to sublimate and remove most of the ice crystals.​
Desorption Drying Stage: After the sublimation drying, there is still a small amount of bound water remaining in the chicken breast. At this time, the equipment further raises the heating temperature and removes these bound waters under strictly controlled temperature and vacuum conditions, so as to achieve the ideal degree of dryness. This stage lasts for 6 hours, and finally reduces the water content of the freeze-dried chicken breast to less than 2%.​
Post-Treatment: After the freeze-drying is completed, the freeze-dried chicken breast is packaged in a sterile environment to prevent secondary contamination.​

Application Effects​

Nutrition and Taste: Through testing, the freeze-dried chicken breast produced by the IN-120 vacuum freeze-drying equipment has a protein retention rate of up to 96%, and nutritional components such as vitamins and minerals are also well preserved. The product has a crispy taste and excellent rehydration performance. After rehydration, it can basically restore the taste and texture of fresh chicken breast, and is deeply loved by pets.​
Production Capacity Improvement: The large-capacity design and efficient operation of the IN-120 vacuum freeze-drying equipment have greatly improved the enterprise's production capacity. Compared with the original production method, the production capacity has been increased by 3 times, meeting the enterprise's rapidly growing market order demand.​
Cost Control: The equipment performs outstandingly in terms of energy consumption. By optimizing the refrigeration, heating and vacuum systems, the energy consumption per unit product is effectively reduced, and the production cost is reduced by 20%. At the same time, due to the improvement of product quality, the market selling price has increased, and the enterprise's profit margin has been significantly expanded.​
Product Stability: The equipment operates stably and reliably, with a low failure rate, ensuring the continuity of the production process and the consistency of product quality. In the long-term large-scale production process, it can always stably produce high-quality freeze-dried chicken breast products.​

Customer Evaluation​

"Choosing the IN-120 vacuum freeze-drying equipment from INNOTECH Food Machinery Co., Ltd. is an important decision for the development of our enterprise. This equipment has not only helped us successfully launch high-quality freeze-dried chicken breast pet snacks, but also brought significant improvements to us in terms of production capacity, cost and product quality. Its efficient and stable performance, as well as precise process control, fully meet our needs for large-scale production of high-quality products. The cooperation with INNOTECH is very pleasant, and we look forward to continuing to work together in the future to explore more market opportunities." — Wang Qiang, General Manager of Shandong Flavoryland Co., Ltd.​

Through the application of the IN-120 vacuum freeze-drying equipment of INNOTECH Food Machinery Co., Ltd., Shandong Mengchongle Pet Food Co., Ltd. has successfully achieved product upgrading and production capacity expansion, occupied a more favorable position in the fierce market competition, and fully demonstrated the excellent performance and application value of INNOTECH vacuum freeze-drying equipment in the field of chicken breast freeze-drying.​