Requirements of the Raw Material. Small, uniformly sized, free-flowing, unpackaged materials lend themselves to the widest range of freezing conditions. Thus berries, green peas, cut corn, cross-cut green beans, lima beans, and meat chunks can be frozen in bulk or in a box by several different methods. Some products can be frozen by only one or two methods because of their shape and size and packaging requirements, Cauliflower, broccoli, and asparagus must be packaged first, and so freezing is ordinarily limited to plate and air-blast methods, Meat patties and raw shrimp are frozen by a method that permits them to remain stationary on a belt or tray, or in a package. Packaged items could be frozen with cryogen, but the potential of instant freezing would be minimized because of the insulating properties of the box and wrapper.

Plate freezing has the similar advantage of heat transfer by conduction. However, food products conduct heat more slowly than water, most plate-frozen foods are in containers, and the plate freezer is more costly to build, install, and operate. Consequently, plate freezing is considerably more costly than our reference process - water freezing. Labor cost is potentially high but can be reduced by automatic loading and unloading. Plate freezing is more limited in what if we can handle than air-blast freezing, but new developments are widening its application.