One of the elements which helps us to provide a quality pita bread to our clients and distributors is the fact that we use a blast freezer to freeze it after it has been baked and cooled.
Have you heard of Blast freezing or Shock freezing? Do you know why it is beneficial?
This post tells you more about this.
Blast freezing (also known as shock freezing) is the process by which we can freeze a fresh product, in this case pita bread, very quickly, freezing the product completely in a matter of minutes. It is a very well-known and well-used conservation technique within the food industry as it allows us to preserve the product’s nutritional properties and stop the natural degradation processes from setting in.
We have been using blast freezing at Mana Pan Pita for several years now and we blast freeze our pitta once it has been fully baked and allowed to cool. We have a specialized blast freezer and the freezing process does not take longer than 2 hours and 30 minutes.
What are the benefits of blast freezing?
- It preserves all of the pita bread’s nutritional value
It has been scientifically proven that the blast freezing process preserves all of the fresh product’s nutritional content. This is due to how quickly the freezing process takes place – it allows us to freeze the bread’s water content which in turn preserves the bread’s nutritional content. Water content is reduced in other, longer freezing techniques which means that a part of the product’s nutritional value is reduced. - It prolongs the pita bread’s shelf life
The blast freezing process significantly increases the shelf life of food products. Our fresh pita bread would last just a few short days at room temperature before going bad, but when we use a blast freezer to freeze it our clients can store it in their freezers for a long time. This is another very important benefit for our customers. - Thanks to blast freezing we don’t need to add preservatives to our pita
We have always aimed to produce a pita bread which is as natural as possible – free from preservatives and improvers. We wanted our product to be a healthy option for our clients. Blast freezing makes this possible. In fact, we think this is one of the most important benefits of this type of freezing. It means we can steer clear of chemical additives which we may have otherwise needed to prolong our pita’s shelf life or improve its aspect or texture. The result is a 100% natural bread which is also 100% vegan. - It preserves our pita bread’s organoleptic characteristics
Thanks to the blast freezing process, our customers are able to defrost our pitta bread whenever they need it and the bread will look, smell, feel and taste like it is fresh from the oven. It is of course very important that the product is defrosted correctly, but once it has been, the pita bread will have the same quality as when it was freshly baked. Texture is perhaps the quality which suffers the most in less efficient freezing processes, but blast freezing preserves our pita’s unique texture – soft and not chewy whilst also being flexible and resistant to breakage.
