Praxair announced today that the company is expanding the services offered in its Food Technologies Laboratory with the addition of a production-sized ColdFront Cryo-Saver Tunnel Freezer. The newly designed tunnel freezer complements other temperature control systems already in place in the Chicago area lab. The ColdFront Cryo-Saver Freezer is capable of lowering cryogen consumption by up to 15 percent as compared to conventional designs.  All Praxair systems use either cryogenic liquid carbon dioxide or cryogenic liquid nitrogen to freeze or chill food products rapidly.

The Praxair Food Technologies Laboratory conducts in-house evaluations on products for food producers. The laboratory services include product thermal analysis, equipment sizing for freezing and chilling, product preparation & evaluation, and equipment performance demonstration. The lab also maintains one of the largest databases in the industry of food product analyses with thousands of records collected over the past 40 years. Away from the Chicago-Burr Ridge campus, the Food Lab staff conducts in-field tests at customer locations to certify lab results and fine-tune systems for improved productivity. Praxair also has several freezers that can be deployed for demonstrations at customer facilities.

“With the addition of the Cryo-Saver Freezer, we can now test customer product on any of our commercially available freezing and chilling equipment,” said Roman Grosman, director of national business development. “We closely match production conditions using either carbon dioxide or nitrogen and the customer-specific system whether it be a tunnel, spiral, flighted, immersion, mixer or rotary equipment orientation.”

In addition to the freezing and chilling tests using customer food products, the lab has the capability to cook, grill, fry, roast, microwave or bake the food items in a full-scale prep kitchen. Having access to a full prep kitchen allows the visiting customer to replicate the consumer experience and evaluate the overall appearance, taste and quality both as a frozen product and when properly prepared.

For more information, visit www.praxair.com.