Is frosty surface on fish and seafood a sign of cold chain breakdown?

I can not point you to exact documents only to say that a frosty surface appearance for seafood, such as fin fish could be the result of blast freezing as well as a breakdown in the coldchain.

You need to know more about the chilling procedures.................is this your product or a purchased ingredient?

I have audited facilities in Vietnam producing basa fillets... They have a process called glazing, covering the fish with a thin layer of ice. This is used to preserve the fish quality.

Are you asking because your finished products have frosty surface after processing or your raw material used are found to have frosty surface? Give us more details if you can so we can give more information to you.

Dear majoy
The product is glazed (no frosty when processing) but why and how it will become frosty surface after that?



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Freezing effect.

Assuming that the product is already completely frozen, it is the effect of the humidity in the air freezing onto the product, such as a frozen beer glass. This can be a critical point as there can be particulates in the air which can bond into the frost. Some sort of packaging, or wrapping the batches in insulation when removing from the freezer is recommended.

Blast freezing causes the water to form very small (depending on how rapid the freezing process is) crystals on exposed meat (of any kind)  

Moisture from the air is condensing on the frozen product causing frosty appearance?

Same process that causes frost to appear on windows.

How long before the frosty appearance can be seen?

Dear all
May I know is frosty surface on fish and seafood is a sign of cold chain breakdown?

Any documents I can refer to?

Thanks in advance for all guidance.

Rgds

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Hi Kylo,

It is unclear which step in the cold chain is being queried + condition of item being/already frozen ???

For example -

(1) Is this directly after freezing an unwrapped product ? Or wrapped ?

(2) Is this subsequent to storage of a fully enclosed product, eg in a plastic bag, in a cold room at a well-regulated temperature of approx. -18degC ?

The choice may influence the explanation.

Dear Charles
It is upon customer show the product.
Thus not sure what cause it and at which point.



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I deduce you mean it was a sample of a finished, fully packed product.

Unfortunately this makes speculation rather "open-ended". :smile:

(Could simply be from transit/cold storage temperature fluctuations)