My journey

What is gentle freeze drying ?

Freeze drying is a process in which we put the frozen fruit into a vacuum chamber, in which the temperature reaches from -60 to -40°C, and we gradually heat the fruit slowly, causing the water to evaporate from the fruit. The water is trapped in the form of ice on the surrounding cooling pipe and the fruit remains completely dried.

Gentle freeze-drying is a controlled process of lyophyllisation by reducing the temperature up to max. 40°C and extend the production process to preserve all nutrition values of the product.

Recently, the popularity of freeze-drying as the most gentle processing of fruit has come to the fore. 
The general statement that freeze-dried fruit retains almost all its nutritional value may not be true.

Lyophilization works by placing deep-frozen fruit on a base plate and slowly heating the plate in a vacuum chamber at -40 to -60 degrees.

This heating is usually done with a tube in the form of a snake, where steam or oil heated up to 100 or 180 °C is poured under high pressure.  The average temperature of the fruit thus very often exceeds +50 °C, when freeze-drying already destroys heat-sensitive vitamins and minerals.  To speed up the process, it is not an exception that the fruit is heated to +80-90 °C.  The result is crisp dried fruit that is indistinguishable from properly freeze-dried fruit at max.  40 °C.  Those pieces of fruit that were closest to the heating tube are of course darker in color and are therefore ground into powder and sold again as full-fledged freeze-dried fruit.  In the EU, there is no obligation to declare the lyophilization procedure or the resulting vitamin status in the lyophilized fruit.

We use a unique innovative drying method - Gentle freeze-drying

We record every step in fruit processing. Every second of the freeze-drying process is recorded, measuring the temperature of the base tray and the temperature of the fruit, which under no circumstances must exceed +40 °C.

Our modification of a commonly used lyophilizer:
1.) we removed uneven heating with hot oil and replaced it with direct electric heating of the tray on which the fruit is placed
2.) in addition to the temperature of the tray, we also measure the internal temperature of the fruit.
3.) we removed the "shelves" and thus saved space, which significantly saves energy
4.) we use solar photovoltaic panels
5.) we check the quality of the fruit from the farm to the final product

 

How can we prove the quality of our products?

1.) We have our own plantation and cooperate with proven partners:

2.) We only harvest fully ripe fruits:

 3.) The transportation of the fruits to the place of freezing is max. 50 km

4.) Deep freezing of the fruits at -40°C

5.) Gentle freeze-drying
 

 

How can you prove the quality of our products?

It is simple.  As we have been doing for several years: put our and our competitor’s fruit on the table.

You can immediately compare the color, smell, consistency, shape and taste.

However, with our laboratory, we have also the proof of the nutritional value. 

We can declare the rest of vitamin C and A and other nutrients sensitive to heat after the freeze-drying process.

Try our fruit once and you will never go back to your former supplier.

 

If you have some questions or you would like to freeze-dry some special product, contact us at borodac@chia.sk