The jam of the future

Nina E. Tveter

The jar of jam sitting on the supermarket shelf contains a lot of water. The jam has been cooked and mixed with preservatives, and its colour is pale in comparison to the fresh product. Even those inviting TV commercials for jam fail to convince us that it has conserved the fresh taste of recently picked, bright red strawberries.

That genuine, fresh, summer taste can however be preserved if the jam is dehydrated using a low-temperature process, according to Professor Ingvald Strømmen, the Grand Old Man of dehydration techniques at NTNU's Department of Refrigeration and Air Conditioning.

The patented freeze-drying process involves reducing the fresh product to pulp, mixing it with gas, and freezing it in a special way. The material is thereby given the consistency of foam. This is then crushed and dried to a powder at low temperature.

­ By means of this method both the taste and the vitamins are preserved, and the product is easy to transport. Reducing the cost of freight and storage means lower costs, explains Strømmen.

­ A range of different fruits and berries can be dehydrated using this method, even potatoes and breakfast cereals. Breakfast cereals are already available in this form in the shops, so here we have to compete by offering more flavour. This feather-light idea has much to offer to mountain tourism and the army forces, as well as supermarkets.

SINTEF and Leiv Eriksson Nyfotek have combined to found the Dtech company, which will be responsible for developing the idea commercially.