What is a storage freezer?

When looking to start a new production line, one of the most important business decisions you can make is choosing how to store and reduce waste for the specific food product you are producing for your customers. One of the most popular ways to make sure food based products are able to be stored for a long period of time is via using storage freezers after the initial quick freezing or flash freezing process is finished. But what is a storage freezer?

Storage Freezing 101

A storage freezer, like the name suggests, is used mainly to store products that are frozen in a flash freezer. A storage freezer does get mistaken for a freezer that you use to initially use to freeze the products, but please try not to make that mistake.

Storage freezers are not able to quick freeze and therefore are not able to initially freeze the product and maintain the product’s original freshness. If you are looking for a flash freezer or how to flash freeze please visit our main home page.

A Storage freezer is made to store food products which have already been frozen. After a product has been flash frozen, since the ice crystals have already been made within the product, what a storage freezer does and it’s main function is to maintain those ice crystals for a long period of time to make sure the product can be used 3 to 6 months later and still maintain its original freshness, flavor, color, and most of its original texture.

Storage freezers range from -20 C to -60 C depending on the size and scale of it.
For the storage freezers that are just -20C (usually just commercial freezers) they can hold a product for about 1 o 2 months only For freezers that go below -30 C or lower they can hold products for up to 6 months! For Any storage freezer that goes below -40C you can expect a lot of products, especially seafood like fish or shrimp, to meats to be okay after 1 year of storage ( storage time varies depending on the product *).

Now, are all storage freezers the same? What are your options ? Keep reading to find out!

The different options available to you

When you are in the market for a storage freezer that is right for your business, you have a lot of different storage freezers to choose from! Here are some of the options that you have for storage freezers.

Chest Freezer

One of the most used storage freezer types is the freezer chest storage freezer.

Open chest freezer on white background*

You can find various sizes of chest freezers all over the market. Chest freezers are mostly used within restaurants and other businesses that do not have a lot of space available to store their products. A chest storage freezer is relatively inexpensive and you can get some that can store your product for quite a long time.

You can find storage freezers that go well below -40C which allows you to freeze and store your product for at least 6 months.

Chest Freezers are recommended for those that do not have much space and are looking for an inexpensive way to store their products. Or if you need to store freeze products below -40C. If you are a business that is looking to store hundreds or thousands of products, then maybe a large storage freezer room may be better for your business. 

Factory size freezer rooms

When it comes to large business that need to store thousands of lbs or kg (weight) of products, chest freezers or small storage freezers are not an option for you. Lucky for you big guys there is an alternative, and that is to make one of your large rooms or empty space in your facility into a large storage freezer room !

Many companies all across the world provide services to businesses that need entire rooms to store their products. Especially businesses that rely heavily on seasonal products that they are not able to attain their products for months at a time and rely on storing a large portion of their products for many months at a time.

They do this by installing multiple cooling units, each connected to a large compressor that is able to cool the room. The downside is that these rooms do not get as cold as small storage freezers and you can expect -20 C to -30 C as the lowest a room can go in temperature due to the hefty power and demand that would be needed to cool the room even lower. So for these types of storage freezers we recommend products that only need to be stored for 3 months.

This is due more to the space requirements and less to do with the plate freezers that are used to create a store freezing space. You can have a space that can store the products with temperature of -40C or even lower, but please also keep in mind not only the amount of power that it would require, but also safety for the people that will be going in and out of the space as after -40C degrees frost bite can happen if the workers stay in the room for a long period of time.

What storage freezer is right for you ?

At the end of the day you have to look at your business needs and decide which machines will benefit your business and help it grow and expand while fully satisfying your customer’s needs and wants.

We recommend to ensure that your products retain their original freshness throughout the initial freezing process, looking into flash freezing technology may be an option for you.

After choosing how to initially freeze your product, going through the quantity, facility space, and overall initial costs that you are willing to or are able to handle. If you need help figuring out what specific flash freezer or storage freezer you need for your business, please contact us for a free 1 on 1 consultation with our freezer specialists.