5 replies to this topic

[tylerbonj]

Hey all! This is my first post in this community. Excited to make acquaintances with everyone!

 

I'll start with some background. I work at a sorbet manufacturing plant. I've been tasked with developing a HACCP plan for our facility and getting us SQF compliant. 

 

One of our sorbets is Acai. We receive our acai frozen, in pulp form, and it needs to be defrosted prior to processing. Currently, they are removed from our freezers 24 hours before they need to be processed to thaw. Problem is, the "thawing process" is simply these buckets of pulp sitting on a pallet on the warehouse floor, defrosting in ambient temperature until it is time to process.

 

I know lots of you are probably writhing in pain at the very thought of that. Me too. 

 

So, I pose you all this: how can we effectively defrost these pails of pulp so that they are suitable for processing? They only need about 20-24 hours of defrost time. Any less and the production team cannot effectively process it. Too much and the Acai loses its color.

 

I appreciate any and all replys. Have a great day ya'll!

 

Tyler

[SQFconsultant]

This might sound like a funny response, but it is from experience.

 

Several years ago I had client that received apricot puree in frozen state and they had to defrost to process it at thawed state.

 

They had just failed an audit because they had pallets of these buckets sitting on them thawing out in the middle of the warehouse - I arrived two weeks later.

 

They had no idea how long to thaw or at what temperature other than what they were doing.

 

So, we called the company that they bought the puree buckets from and asked for non-competing customers of theirs and they said sure, gave us 4 - we called each one and found out the correct refrigerated temperatures that would work out well, would no longer put the product into peril, etc.

 

You might want to try the same - as it is you will need to do refrigerated thawing, leaving the buckets or drums out like that is going to cause issues for you if it already hasn't.

[Tony-C]

Hi Tyler,

 

 

Welcome to the IFSQN forums.

 

If you are developing a HACCP plan for the facility and getting it SQF compliant then you probably should start off on the right foot.

 

Defrosting in a cold store is the safest way to do this. Alternatives are likely to add risk.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[Dorothy87]

hi

 

The below procedure was for frozen diced mango 4mm delivered in bags and boxes.  I am not sure how long Acai will need to defrost in the chiller but you can speed the process up using draining trays. The best way to find out is to check temperature every hour, sometimes it could take up to 20 hours but by this exercise you will match defrosting and quality requirements. 

 

1. Place the Box onto the de-boxing table.

2. Remove the tape by peeling it off the box. 

3. Remove the bag from the box and transfer the content to draining trays (approx. 5kg per tray), ensuring no packaging is trapped. 

4. Allow to defrost in the chiller until the temperature of the product is 1^oC to 5^oC. 

5. Record defrosted fruits temperature on Defrosting Log 

 

 

Attached Files

•  Defrosting trays.jpg   49.31KB   0 downloads

[rhondakay]

Welcome Tylerbonj, 

 

I agree with Dorothy87, the best route of thawing this product is through refrigeration. You will definitely need a trial period to determine how long it will take for one container to reach the optimum temperature for use. 

[tylerbonj]

Thank you guys for the warm welcomes and the wealth of information!

 

Glenn your story is particularly funny considering our situation is nearly the same - I will see about getting non-competing customers from our supplier. 

 

I think my path forward is pretty clear:

1. Run trials of defrosting at a refrigerated tempurature, seeing how easy the product is to work with at various intervals

2. Test product for pH + bacteria at those intervals (I would imagine they wouldn't vary much seeing as there is a small amount of citric acid in the pulp)

3. Determine where the acceptable thaw state and acceptable for food safety intersect, and run with that interval

4. Get some people in here to build us a walk-in fridge or purchase a gigantic one (these are big pails, around 30/40 pounds, and we defrost around 60-80 at a time!)

 

Thanks again everyone this forum feels like the ultimate resource