Table 3 compares costs of freezing IQF (individually quick frozen) strawberries with LN and with air blast in a fluidized bed freezer. This comparison assumes LN at 3 cents a pound, used at a ratio of 1.5 pounds LN to I pound of strawberries. In spite of the greater cost of operating the air-blast freezer, the only factors of significance in this comparison are the cost of liquid nitrogen and the evaporation losses in the air blast operation. If freezing costs and evaporation losses were the only two factors considered, the losses would have to be over 20 percent with strawberries at 20 cents a pound for the total costs to be equal.

The difference in cost between these two methods is not minor -- it is 2.15 cents a pound, 140 percent more for LN than for air-blast freezing. To answer the argument that liquid-nitrogen freezing permits a much smaller initial outlay of cash (as needed for the plant and equipment), let us consider this fact: liquid nitrogen costs for the first year alone, a cost also to be reckoned in the initial capitalization, is more than the difference in plant costs plus difference in evaporation losses, as shown in table 3.