A new technology promises to revolutionize the freezing process for food products such as shrimp. Taiwan imports tens of thousands of tons of freshwater prawn from Southeast Asia every year. With the new peptide-based freezing technology, frozen shrimp don’t get dehydrated and retain more of their integrity and taste.
A worker opens a box and unpacks frozen giant freshwater prawns. They are shelled and go straight into the pan.
Kuanyin-tea-infused prawns, Thai prawn soup, prawns and spinach in a cheese gratin… All these dishes star frozen freshwater prawns imported from Vietnam or Thailand. Peel back the shells and you can see just how fresh they are.
Freshwater prawn chef
The meat has a firm quality, but with springiness.
Luo Chin-han
Chinese Gourmet Association
Their flavor after defrosting is sweeter and better than our normal prawns produced in the standard way.
They even have the springiness and appealing color of fresh prawns after defrosting. A biotech company has developed a new peptide freezing technology, which can rapidly freeze foods. Prawns transported this way can retain more than 95% of their structure and keep for five years. And the technology works for more than just seafood.
Lin Ku-chun
Biotech company CEO
Giant freshwater prawns can’t be put in ice – as soon as they’re frozen, their soluble proteins and flesh start to disintegrate. Our antifreeze peptides mainly work to inhibit the growth of ice crystals, so we’ve solved the “recrystallization” problem which nobody could manage before. We can freeze milk and eggs, which is relevant to the egg shortage Taiwan experienced recently. Once they are defrosted, the eggs retain their taste, and their yolks and albumens don’t break.
Only about 11,000 tons of whiteleg shrimp are grown in Taiwan annually – not enough to meet the demand for shrimp. About 25,000 to 36,000 tons of prawns must be imported each year to fill the gap. This new technology could make those imports taste, feel and even look much closer to their original glory.
