In the 1990s Milmeq pioneered the introduction of large scale plate freezing technology to the meat industry. We have also provided plate freezers to the dairy industry for freezing liquid cream. Today we produce the world’s largest horizontal plate freezers.

The MILMEQ® Plate Freezer features refrigerant-filled plates which make direct contact with cartons of product to provide a rapid, energy efficient freeze.

Energy consumption for plate freezing is is generally 25-30% lower than blast freezing.

The typical 48 hour freezing cycle of air blast freezers is reduced to 24 hours in plate freezers.

This rapid freeze improves the refrigeration index (a measure of shelf life and a regulatory requirement) while the cycle time reduction reduces stock inventory and time to market.

Another benefit of plate freezing is the output of cartons with uniformly flat surfaces, which deliver space efficiencies in the palletising, container loading and distribution operations.

Each plate freezer installation is custom designed to meet the client’s processing requirements. Consideration is given at the design stage to allow flexibility for future additions and upgrades as product throughput requirements grow.

Plate freezers are available in automatic, semi-automatic or manual configurations. They can be supplied with range of refrigerants including ammonia (NH3).

Use the button below to find out more about our plate freezer range.

We continue to improve our plate freezer designs and one of our latest innovations is the single station opening (SSO) model. In this configuration, only one set of plates opens at a time to load or unload product, leaving the others closed to continue the freezing process.

The SSO model delivers up to 3.5 hours additional freezing time. Depending on production requirements, this can result in a greater product turnover or the plate evaporating temperature can be raised to gain a further reduction in energy consumption.

Generally, a requirement of the plate freezer system is for all cartons entering the freezer to be exactly the same size. A recent innovation has allowed multiple height cartons to be accommodated in one plate freezer.

A key component that is now a standard part of the plate freezer is a desiccant dehumidifier. A stream of very low dew point air provides a slight positive pressure to the plate freezer enclosure minimising frost build-up on equipment and sensor surfaces, and minimising the need for defrost.