Abstract
In recent years, the demand for consumption of ready-to-eat fast meals prepared by food catering sectors has increased and highlighted the value of cooked-chilled and cooked-frozen food products. A cook-chilled system is a food preservation technology in which foods are fully cooked, rapidly chilled, refrigerated for storage, and reheated before serving. The processing of cook-frozen foods is similar to the cook-chilled products except the final product which is frozen at a temperature below −30 °C and stored frozen until use. There are different cooling and freezing techniques that are currently used for making cook-chilled, sous-vide, and cook-frozen food products such as blast chilling, water bath chilling, and freeze-chilling. The operating temperatures and cooling rates in these techniques must be low to inhibit the growth of the relevant microorganisms. It has been demonstrated that the application of these systems can provide convenience and safety with retention of nutritional content and is considered as a better alternative for branded fast food. However, although the consumption of these products is appealing, strict handling conditions need to be implemented.