Muharrem DEMİR General Manager - Genel Müdür APACK Ambalaj Makine Sanayi ve Tic. Ltd. Şti. Pastries that our mothers baked are maybe the best in our cuisine. Pastries, buns, desserts, puffs, cakes and breads… However it is easy at all to convey all these flavors that our mothers baked to the world cuisine. Crispy pastries would soften, soft buns would become rubbery, water heurek with cheese would get mould, and breads would become hard to bite. Today, the most suitable way to convey these flavors to the global consumers is central kitchen system. As APACK, we have been focusing on this issue for the last couple of years; we have come a long way. It is not very easy to reach global standards in bakery products; it requires effort, time and investment. With this method, uncooked, precooked and cooked products in central kitchen are packaged with MAP (Modified Atmosphere Packaging). Extending its shelf life 7-10 days more with this packaging style, the product is quick-frozen in the package. So its shelf life extends 6 months more. The product, in MAP package, is distributed to project points in cold chain without being affected by icing and dampening due to cooling. Thawed at room temperature on project point, the product reaches again 7-10 day shelf life that MAP provides. It is served as cooked or heated. In other words, it is delivered to the customer as if it is just out of your mother’s oven without additives, losing its taste and visual condition. There a couple of significant issues in this method. The first one is the packaging technic. MAP and Vacuum are the most compatible technic with quick-freezing, the second phase. However, the plate and the top film should be compatible with the product quality and application temperature. There is a significant difference between “Quick-freezing” and “Freezing”. “Quick-Freezing” is defined as the real freezing process as the liquid of the product is transformed from liquid phase to solid phase by reducing the product’s temperature. Freezing the product until 0°C /-18°C is accepted as the standard in frozen food industry. Temperature change is operated in three phases while reducing the temperature of the product. Various parts of the product are processed through these phases in different periods. With IQF method, vegetables-fruits and fisheries remain fresh until its expiration date for 2 years; bakery products also remain fresh at -18°C for a year. Food products are frozen one by one at -40 ºC with Individual Quick Frozen method which is abbreviated as IQF, Individual Quick Frozen. This process is realized by freezing the liquid in the products and this method enables food products to be additive-free and long-lasting. The products are quick-frozen at -40 ºC and stored at -18°C with IQF method so that microorganisms which cause rottenness in frozen foods cannot grow; foods cannot rot and do not lose their nutritional values. To avoid nutritional loss during freezing, this process should be realized without cracking the cell membrane. During this process, foods should pass to -5°C very quickly. “Freezing” should be defined as keeping the frozen product at a stable temperature. The products which are quick-frozen with IQF method can be stored at -18°C in the refrigerator for 24 hours and in freezer for 7 days. Nutritional value of frozen products equals to fresh foods. According to the test results, Vitamin C amount in frozen vegetables such as green bean and spinach is higher than in fresh vegetables. There are many products sold as frozen in market shelves. But we should cook them at home. However, we are in fast consuming age. Especially in developed countries, people are far from using their kitchen at home. Moreover, these people with limited time have enough of eating fast-food. So the project points have been developed for this reason. This concept which is intended to deliver homemade foods to the tables very quickly is the nourishment method of the future. One of the most efficient methods to present our mothers’ pastries is this presentation method in these project points.