FROZEN SNACKS

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What is frozen snacks?
Frozen snacks is wonders of frozen packaged foods that are commonly available in our local stores, you can from their fridges straight onto a pan mess free and much tastier. Even throwing parties or having a small get together has become stress free by frying ready made Asian snacks such as frozen samosas and spring rolls. Some people don’t like to after work go to the supermarket buy dish and cook, in their refrigerator will store the frozen food. Frozen snack is the food that is need to be frozen, after appropriate processing, through a variety of ways to make it freezing quickly, the packaging and storage at 18 degrees C and - 20 degrees Celsius. Its biggest advantage is in low temperature to preserve the original food, and without any preservatives and additives, while allowing maximum preserved food nutrition. However it keeps food delicious, convenient, health and nutrition

(Tia Kaur 2011)
HISTORICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES
Food after being frozen can preserve itself for a much longer period of time as the freezing process slows down decomposition by transforming moisture into ice, inhibiting the growth of bacteria.

Frozen snacks historical influences
Modern frozen food has had a history of almost 100 years whereas it has, in fact, been popular since 3,000 BC when the ancient Chinese used ice cellars to preserve food through cold winter months and beyond. Beginning in 1929, Clarence Birdseye offered his quick-frozen foods to the public, and then the first frozen food was developed by Birds Eye and appeared in the shops in 1939. The market grew at a rapid pace following this, with a huge range of products being developed. Birdseye got the idea during fur-trapping expeditions to Labrador in 1912 and 1916, where he saw the natives use freezing to preserve foods. Later he brought the idea back to the US where he spent years’ time perfecting the process that is now known as quick freezing where each individual food item is rapidly frozen at extremely cold temperature to obtain small ice crystals so that food cells are not damaged.

In the 40s and 50s
The 40s and early 50s saw a rapid growth in frozen foods in the UK. A dramatic increase of frozen food appeared in the market while the first frozen ready meal was seen on the shelf in 1953. The earliest freezers were designed for the purpose of bulk buying. This 1954 model from the USA held one third of an American ton.

In the 60s and 70s
In the 1960s and 70s, people gradually realise that leisure is just as important as work which brought up the emphasis of convenience of living. Consequently, frozen snacks and ready meals became the perfect pick of the majority of households.

The 1980s
Since the 1980s, there has been an increasing awareness of healthy lifestyle. This enforces the frozen food industry to not only focus on the variety of frozen food ranges in order to satisfy people’s everyday needs, but also to place attention on nutrition and health. Consumers became more aware of nutritional issues, thus E-numbers and additives became common topics of debate. As frozen food does not require any preservative, it was recognised as the safe choice hence its sales were even boosted to a higher level.

Geography & Culture
Since the freezing process is relatively simple, almost any kind of food can be made frozen. Therefore, people from different countries in different regions of the world have various kinds of frozen snacks. For example:

About the East
The spring roll is a traditional Chinese snack which is favoured by all Chinese people throughout the country. However, people today are having less and less time spent in the kitchen; most of them would buy frozen spring rolls from the supermarket. Also, another popular food in China is hot-pot. Few may know that many of the ingredients for making hot-pot are actually frozen, such as frozen bean curd, frozen meat balls and etc.

About the West
Moving west to the European continent, there you can find even greater variety of frozen snacks. For instance, frozen desserts such as cheesecake or puddings; frozen pizza; frozen lasagne and etc. Again, it is possible to turn everything we eat in our daily life into frozen food for easier cooking.

CHANGE AGENTS
Since more than eighty years ago when Bird Eyes put the first frozen food on aisle, there has been some events affecting the development of frozen food.

The Establishment of Iceland
In regards of the new evolving customer demand, Iceland was established and opened its first store in Oswestry in 1970. This revolutionary store sold loose frozen products and in just over 10 years grew to a nationwide chain of 75 stores. There was also an increase in the number of supermarkets throughout the 70s, which enabled people to buy frozen food at any time.

A Change in Preservation
Preserving food in family kitchens during the 20th and 21st centuries was achieved by using household freezers. Advice to householders was to freeze food on the day of purchase. An initiative by a supermarket group in 2012 promoted advising the freezing of food "as soon as possible up to the product's 'use by' date". The Food Standards Agency was reported to support the change, providing food has been stored correctly up to that time.

Food and Health
As being mentioned earlier in this essay, people nowadays are more dedicated to a healthy lifestyle, especially when it comes to selecting food they consume. As a result, the issue of whether frozen food is fresh has become controversial since 2000s.

CURRENT APPLICATIONS

Bakery
Frozen meals such as pizza, lasagne, pies, potato chips or biscuits can be baked before consumption.
Microwaving
Some of the frozen food make its feature of being convenience even more obvious by allowing consumers to microwave which could take as less as 30 seconds to serve;
A Favour for the Environment
Frozen food helps reduce waste: according to research, average consumers throw away about 1/3 of the food they buy. For frozen food, however, you only take out what you eat from your freezer and no need to worry about the left overs. Study suggests that if people can stop wasting food, it would have the same impact on carbon emissions as taking 1 in 5 cars off the roads.

FUTURE TRENDS
The future of frozen food is believed to be in prosperity as the following states:

Government Intervention
Government is pushing the industry to move on. Having conducted marketing research, the New South Wales government has decided to improve the retail conditions as well as the supply of raw materials for frozen food, as being outlined in the Agriculture Economics paper issued by the state government. Such movement would potentially have other state or federal governments to follow.

Approaching Zero Waste
All nature’s crops harvested and used. Freezing a crop, such as peas, can ensure the entire crop is available for sale. Sometimes excess fresh cops need to be ploughed back into the field or left to rot simply because of its short life.

Carbon Footprint Reduction
Through buying frozen food with its longer shelf life you can make fewer trips to the shops by car. Doing so reduces your individual carbon footprint. And, due to its longer shelf life, frozen food can result in less wastage in the delivery and storage chain.

REFERENCES http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/8757/1/26010029.pdf http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/20875559/1768256792/name/Accelerating_New_Food_Product_.pdf#page=20 http://www.thenewiceage.com/top-environmental-aspects-frozen-foods http://www.iceland.co.uk/focus-on-frozen/history-of-frozen-food/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_food -----------------------
Frozen Chinese spring roll

A frozen dessert

An improved retail environment