Cold Chain Management Under Peak Loads as a Factor in Preserving the Premium Quality of Frozen Fish Products

( Vol-12,Issue-4,July - August 2026 )

Author(s): Andrii Kalinichenko

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Page No: 061-073
DOI: 10.22161/ijaems.124.7

Keywords:

cold chain integrity, freezing rate, frozen fish quality, peak load, seafood processing

Abstract:

Premium grade in frozen fish is decided in the hours between landing and the moment a batch leaves the freezer, and the conditions of those hours change when a seasonal plant reaches peak volume. The quality literature measures freezing and frozen storage under steady conditions: a fixed freezing rate, a programmed storage temperature, a planned number of thaw cycles. A processing plant at the height of a salmon run does not operate that way. Arrival rate, queue length, chamber turnaround and door traffic all move at once, and they move the product's thermal history with them. This review proposes a break-point taxonomy for that regime. Five points at which cold chain integrity fails under load are mapped onto the quality-loss mechanism dominant at each, the indicator that makes the loss measurable, and the class of control that holds it. Twenty-nine sources published between 2015 and 2026 are cited, thirteen examined in full text. The penalty for the slower or less controlled route is large and consistent: mean ice crystal cross-sectional area of 939.6 µm² under air freezing against 86.5 µm² under immersion freezing at -40 °C, end-of-storage drip loss of 15.17% at -20 °C against 9.09% at -40 °C, and predicted remaining shelf life falling from 391 to 204 days across a four-stage warming chain. The review closes with a comparative matrix of control practice families and five named gaps, each with a first step.

Received: 04 Jul 2026; Received in revised form: 01 Aug 2026; Accepted: 06 Aug 2026; Available online: 12 Aug 2026

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