EDAMAME – THE RISING STAR OF THE ASIAN MARKET

Many consumers are becoming more health-conscious and the convenience of frozen fruits and vegetables is an appealing alternative for healthy choices. This trend has a big contribution to the popularity of edamame. Consumers use this young soybean as an appetizer, a snack or adding it to salads, even though the trend came along together with sushi consumption. Since the edamame is gaining attention from the consumer’s side, particularly in frozen state, producers are trying to keep up with the demand by providing high quality edamame beans.

Edamame is a product with a hard and thick pod, which requires a longer blanching time. In order to get the best results it is highly recommended to use a performant section blancher that is able to keep a good temperature control. The pre-processing infeed temperature should be the same as the temperature in the outfeed before starting the freezing. It is also important to mention that for the chilling process of edamame, glycol is recommended as refrigerant in order to avoid the risks associated with having ammonia inside the production zone. 

The consumption boom of edamame, we are lately experiencing on the frozen food market, seems to be never ending, with new products, new super-foods and new technologies. Right now the IQF edamame success on the Asian market is inspiring many other markets to produce and process this wonder bean. We are curious to see how big this success will become and how fast it will grow. Processors might encounter some challenges on the way since consumers are becoming more aware of what they eat, the quality they expect, as well as being overall more knowledgeable and informed about their choices. Nevertheless, OctoFrost is here to give a hand and advise you.