Under the theme of health, efficiency and convenience, people's consumption structure and consumption demand are constantly upgrading. Freeze dried foods that can effectively preserve food nutrients and are convenient are favored by more and more consumers. Globally, there is a strong demand for freeze-dried food. According to the analysis report on market demand and investment planning of China's freeze-dried food industry issued by the prospective industry research institute, the annual consumption of freeze-dried food in the United States is 6 million tons, Japan 2 million tons and France 1.6 million tons. Japan, South Korea and other countries import freeze-dried food from abroad up to US $50 billion a year. According to other data, the growth rate of freeze-dried food in China exceeded that of the global freeze-dried food by 7.8% in 2020, showing a strong development trend. Experts predict that freeze-dried food is in line with the green, convenient and healthy consumption trend of food in the future, and has become a new outlet in the food industry.
Lyophilization technology penetrates into many fields
Freeze dried food is the abbreviation of vacuum freeze-dried food, also known as FD food. Through freeze-drying technology, the color, flavor, shape and nutritional components of the original fresh food can be maintained to the greatest extent. It is worth mentioning that due to low water activity, freeze-dried products can be stored at room temperature for a long time without adding preservatives, and the finished products are light in weight and easy to carry and transport. Freeze drying technology can be applied to vitamins, liver powder, fruits and vegetables to effectively retain their nutrients and taste. From the perspective of market development, lyophilization technology covers almost most of the new convenience foods, and is penetrating into many food fields.
In recent years, the rise of freeze-dried food market has attracted manufacturers from different fields. On the market, there are not only freeze-dried fruit and vegetable snacks launched by three squirrels, liangpin shop, Laifen and other leisure snack brands, but also freeze-dried foods such as lotus fresh vegetable soup and breakfast porridge launched by chain catering enterprise KFC. Meanwhile, Xiaomi Youpin and Netease yanxuan have also launched a variety of freeze-dried foods, and coffee startups have also launched freeze-dried instant coffee powder.
Workers in Fujian Lixing production workshop are loading freeze-dried materials
The booming freeze-drying industry has also attracted the attention of leading food enterprises. Dairy giant Yili launched a freeze-dried yogurt snack food with yogurt as raw material in early 2020, which attracted hundreds of thousands of netizens to buy overnight through the head anchor. Freeze drying technology is also widely used in some fashionable food fields, such as coffee industry. Yongpu, an emerging boutique coffee brand, quickly finds a position in the market with the opportunity of technological innovation. Take black coffee as an example, the category penetration rate will increase by 25% in 2020. Hao Kun, head of tmall preserved nuts industry, said that freeze-dried foods, including snack foods, have achieved a growth rate of more than 60% on tmall online.
In the instant noodle industry, the rich ingredient package produced by freeze-drying technology is the highlight of high-end products. Master Kang, a leading instant noodle enterprise, has cooperated with China Aerospace foundation for many years. While supporting the development of aerospace industry, he also applied the FD freeze-drying technology first used in aerospace field to the ingredients of instant noodle products. Jinmailang has also accelerated its layout in the high-end market in recent years and launched a series of "one dish and one side" products produced by freeze-drying technology.
It is worth mentioning that with the vigorous development of the industry, freeze-drying production enterprises, including Fujian Lixing and haifusheng, are developing rapidly from centralized procurement of raw materials, equipment supply to production and OEM. Industry insiders predict that in the next five years, the application of freeze-drying technology in domestic convenience food, leisure food, health food ingredients and military food will grow rapidly.
Freeze drying of fruits and vegetables is in the ascendant
In the past, freeze-dried food was consumed more in western developed countries. Chinese food enterprises often export fruits and vegetables after freeze-drying and dehydration to European and American countries with the help of domestic rich agricultural resources. Therefore, the freeze-drying production of domestic enterprises is dominated by a single freeze-dried fruit and vegetable product for a period of time. Data show that fruit is the largest part of the global freeze-dried food market, accounting for 32%. Regionally, North America accounts for the largest share of the global freeze-drying market, about 35%, while South America and the Asia Pacific market grow the fastest.
China has not introduced freeze-drying technology for a long time, but it has a rapid development momentum. In the field of instant noodle ingredients alone, China needs about 40000 tons of freeze-dried food every year, but China's current annual production is far from meeting this demand. In addition, the lack of independent brands and basic research and investment in innovation have become the short board of freeze-dried food production in China. Therefore, Fujian Lixing, Master Kang and other food enterprises have successively undertaken the construction project of freeze-dried food production base in recent years. Guo Shusong, general manager of Fujian Lixing, said that with the rapid development of the global economy, traditional food technology can no longer meet people's needs. In this case, the freeze-drying process should be born from time to time, which can effectively retain the nutrition, color and taste of fruits and vegetables, flour soup and porridge, and keep the food at room temperature for a long time. Guo Shusong revealed that as early as 2006, Lixing began to engage in the R & D and production of freeze-dried food, and launched freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, freeze-dried organic bananas, freeze-dried instant noodles, freeze-dried instant porridge and other products. In recent years, Lixing has continuously increased its construction in the field of freeze-drying. At present, the fourth phase of freeze-dried food production base project has been completed. The "intelligent manufacturing" of the new production workshop not only optimizes the process flow and improves the production efficiency, but also establishes a traceable intelligent and CNC quality assurance management system.
Agriculture and freeze-dried food industry should interact well
As a country with abundant resources of agricultural and sideline products, China urgently needs to improve the added value of products through deep processing. The freeze-drying technology undoubtedly provides a new way for China's agricultural products to realize value-added. Most freeze-dried foods take agricultural and sideline products as the main raw materials. Therefore, vigorous development will help to enhance the added value of agricultural and sideline products and increase agricultural income.
New technologies such as freeze-drying technology are playing a more and more important role in Rural Revitalization. For example, Dai village, Lanling County, Shandong Province, has developed the collective economy, promoted the integration of three industries, accelerated industrial development and promoted rural revitalization by relying on emerging technologies such as freeze-drying since 1999. The reporter saw in daicun industrial park that local enterprises produce a wide range of freeze-dried products, including garlic, burdock, rice beans, beans, pepper, green knife beans, carrots, onion slices and other freeze-dried fruit and vegetable products. Under the leadership of Shandong Xintiandi Modern Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. and other leading enterprises, the industrial park has realized an annual output value of 700 million yuan, providing more than 1000 jobs, driving more than 2000 relevant employment personnel, and radiating more than 50 thousand kinds of households in the county, further extending the county's vegetable industry chain and increasing the added value.
Zhang Yongjian, director of the Research Center for the development and supervision of the food and drug industry of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told reporters that the continuous application of a large number of new technologies to the food field is not only changing the external environment of the food industry, but also affecting the internal structure of the food industry. He believes that on the road of rural revitalization, new technologies such as freeze-drying technology will play an increasingly important role. There are many uncertainties in the quantity and quality of food raw materials. In recent years, with the Rural Revitalization and new rural construction, the scale and intensification of production have been significantly improved. Accordingly, the management and control ability of the safety and quality of agricultural, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery products is also improving. Freeze drying technology is a production technology that maintains good original ecology and nutritional components of raw materials, and needs high-quality raw materials. Rural Revitalization and new rural construction improve the scale and intensification of production, can provide better raw materials for freeze-dried food production, is conducive to the benign interaction between agriculture and freeze-dried food industry, and realize win-win cooperation.
"No matter how good agricultural products are not deeply processed, they will always be led by the market and can't afford to stand up." Guo Shusong said that in rural areas, how to turn agricultural products into high value-added food still needs to rely on industry and technology for development. We should pay attention to the combination of rural enterprises, mutual support and common development. For example, Lixing's organic banana planting base combines the geographical advantages of township agriculture and its own production and development characteristics as a fruit and vegetable freeze-drying enterprise. It is reported that the organic banana base selects the local high-quality Tianbao banana seedlings in Zhangzhou for cultivation, uses self-made compost or organic fertilizer as nutrient base fertilizer, and applies solid and liquid in turn in a certain proportion, driving the development of banana planting industry in villages and towns.
Zhang Yongjian put forward suggestions for the future development of freeze-drying industry. He pointed out that most of the production costs of freeze-dried food are energy consumption. Therefore, how to reduce energy consumption through technological progress is an important issue that the freeze-dried food industry needs to face, both macro and micro. At present, the domestic freeze-dried food market is still in the blue ocean, but food enterprises that need to join this field need to have better development and mining capabilities in terms of products and consumer demand. China's freeze-dried food industry will be in a favorable position in the international market only by seizing the opportunity, actively developing the domestic market and actively participating in international competition. At the same time, freeze-dried food enterprises should, according to the specific conditions of domestic and international markets, constantly learn from the advanced technology and experience of the industry, participate in international competition, make efforts to the domestic market and shape the brand and image of domestic freeze-dried food.
"On the basis of existing products, developing and promoting products that are suitable for the market and meet the requirements of consumers, leading consumer demand and realizing the double harvest of products and benefits is the long-term way of market development," said Zhang Yongjian.