Sunwell Technologies Inc. of Woodbridge, Ont. and the Marine Institute (MI) are continuing their collaborative partnership in a series of tests on various groundfish and shellfish species to establish the benefits of the DeepChill™ process.
DeepChill® is an advanced slurry ice process developed and patented by Sunwell in 1978. The DeepChill® Ice Slurry System offers rapid cooling of fish by super chilling the product using a pumpable mixture of ice micro-crystals and water.
Sunwell and MI are preparing to take on a larger study of the benefits of DeepChill® for selected fish and shellfish species with interested industry stakeholders from the harvesting, processing and aquaculture sectors in Atlantic Canada. It is anticipated this study will begin later this year.
DeepChill® can produce different types of cooling mixtures from a pumpable ice: liquid slurry to dry ice crystals, freshwater to saltwater slurry, and different size ice crystals from small crystals to large crystals (0.25 mm to 2 mm). Ice fractions can be up to 100 per cent with pumpable ice slurry up to 60 per cent ice fraction.
For the seafood sector, this advanced slurry ice process has been successfully used for on-board processing and packaging. Made from ocean or fresh water, it has millions of perfectly round crystals that impart rapid and effective cooling without damaging the fish. As a pumpable slurry, DeepChill® also aims to reduce labour, contamination risks and energy costs.
Recently, senior faculty members from MI’s Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development and research engineers from Sunwell conducted comparative tests to record the benefits of cooling seafood with DeepChill® for shellfish (crab, lobster and mussels) and groundfish (cod and redfish).
The partners co-hosted a demonstration of Sunwell’s DeepChill® Ice Slurry System on Feb. 7, 2018, at MI’s seafood processing pilot plant. During this workshop, the preliminary results of the comparative testing were presented to more than 50 participants from industry, government and academia.
Because fish and seafood are subject to rapid spoilage, it is important to cool fish quickly to maintain quality and freshness. Preliminary testing using DeepChill® indicates the ice slurry cools shrimp, crab, redfish and cod more rapidly than flake ice. Funding for this testing was provided by the Department of Fisheries and Land Resources, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador.
For more information regarding the DeepChill® technology and/or the DeepChill® study please contact: Anis Somani at Sunwell Technologies: Anis.Somani@sunwell.com (416) 919-6828; or Heather Manuel at the Marine Institute: Heather.Manuel@mi.mun.ca (709) 778-0345.
By Heather Manuel
Director, Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development
and
Anis Somani
Director, Sunwell Technologies
