Actual resource use:
- Prairie Lane Saskatoons supplied the berries and the site with the understanding this operation would keep the prototype but the technology would be available to all.
- The department of biosystems engineering collaborated with the food science department at the U of M to build and test a single phase blast freezing unit on farm.
- The researchers froze saskatoons as quickly as the unit allowed and tested the results.
- Frozen berries were a little lighter in color and slightly less flavourful - but still very acceptable - compared to fresh saskatoons.
Project Observations and Conclusions:
- The researchers published their findings in a scientific journal - Canadian Biosystems Engineering - in the late winter of 2001. Visit www.csae-scgr.ca.
- Prairie Lane Saskatoons is now using the prototype blast freezer and looking for producers of other berries to use the unit to freeze their produce.
- Ritz further processes his frozen berries into fruit toppings and syrups using equipment he houses at the Food Development Centre in Portage la Prairie. He markets this value-added products throughout Europe and Manitoba.
Cenkowski worked out the costs to be about 45 cents per kilogram of berries frozen. He says another 40 cents or so would be needed to foot the bill for using the same unit as storage the rest of the year. Ritz uses a separate walk-in freezer to store his saskatoons.
