Last year Air Liquide Japan (President: Shiro Yahara) started to sell its product of tunnel-type food freezer “ALIGAL FZ” using liquid nitrogen to cool down to minus 90 to 100 degree C. It would probably show up as a strategic lineup with the combination of gas and equipment making the best use of the leverage of the strength in the food-related field which the Air Liquide Group headquartered in France boasts.

The freezer was developed in the United States in 2013 and was certified by USDA. The conventional stainless steel freezer in square shape had inevitably caused a trouble of ingredient remnants, but the round-shape design using glass fiber made cleaning easier and saved the cleaning cost. The feature of upgraded performance is that a large volume can be frozen efficiently by circulating the cool atmosphere with a fan. You can recognize this feature with the demonstration machine at the Application Center in Amagasaki. 　

Jean-Francois Roques, PhD, a food and pharma expert of the Food & Pharma Group, Business Development Dep., Industrial Merchant Division of Air Liquide Japan described the strength of own production of freezers for an overall proposal saying, “ALIGAL FZ is applicable to a variety of foodstuff. We are proposing an integrated and total turn-key solution including gas, process expertise and application technology to commit to performance..” Air Liquide has put the brand of ALIGAL on the equipment and gases for the food industry. The ALIGAL gases also includes the mixed gases based on nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen, which were sold first abroad. He said, “To my surprise, when I came to Japan four years ago, there was little modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) for the food selling in supermarkets. In the Western countries, MAP food package is very common. When I asked the reason why not in Japan, they said that gas makers did not promote MAP strongly . I also got in touch with some packaging machine manufacturers, but not so many of them put in any gas at that time. In Europe the gas replacement has been quite usual since 20 to 25 years ago. Oxygen scavengers (Antioxidants) were used in Japan, while gases were put in in the Western countries. In the United States gas is used from the viewpoint to prevent any ingestion accident in food packaging.”

Roques pointed out as follows the difference between Japan and overseas countries in terms of the penetration of food gas.
　
There is a background of difference in lifestyle. In Europe they go out shopping only once a week, while in the United States more extremely they go out shopping by a big car to a remote supermarket and preserve in a huge refrigerator. Upon the birth of a supermarket the gas replacement started at the same time as the packaging was automated. It means that there existed needs to keep fresh food longer from the beginning.

On the other hand, in Japan where people frequently go shopping for foodstuff, the volume of wastes is so much that the increased loss of foodstuff has become very serious particularly in proportion to the increased number of convenience stores. The Government naturally started to reduce the loss of foodstuff. In line with the trend, food chain stores have started to take measures to set longer best-before days of food for sale since 2013. 　
　
He said, “Air Liquide is a French company which is particular about food, and has been responding to special needs from the United States, Germany and other countries of the world since 50 to 60 years ago. As a result, we have a long experience in the food business including frozen foodstuff. Special knowledge has been fostered through its responses to the situations of various countries. We have been so well versed in the Japanese market that we can make fine tuning to meet the Japanese specific needs. How can we find a way to get highly evaluation on our international knowhow which does not exist domestically? We have now the very opportunity to make the most of the advantage.”