Food
Since 1902 Air Liquide has led the way in safe and effective gas solutions for the food industry. We serve the entire food industry supply chain, “from farm-to-fork.” We have developed innovative and sustainable solutions to meet the most rigorous health and safety standards for the benefit of the industry and consumers.
Whether in freezing, modified atmosphere packaging, quality and flavour preservation, carbonation, inerting and/or throughout the processing and distribution chains, our goal is to enhance your productivity and profitability to extend product shelf life while ensuring safety and quality.
Our offers are compatible with any kind of food production set-up – from raw material preparation to finished product transportation – and are based on strong technical expertise. Our vast knowledge of the food industry is grounded in more than 100 years of experience and a global research and development network.
We lead the industry in the secure production and reliable supply of premium grade industrial gases, including food grade gases. We have applied this knowledge and experience to develop a dedicated brand for food grade gases: ALIGAL™.
Safety First
Air Liquide's carbon dioxide liquefaction and nitrogen production facilities serving the food and beverage industry have achieved the Food Safety System Certification 22000 (FSSC 22000), an internationally-recognized standard for food safety.
Our innovative cryogenic freezing systems meets today’s highest standards for food safety.
A strong tradition of innovation
When you choose Air Liquide, you can depend on a dynamic multifaceted corporation committed to solid growth through proven technical solutions. Our food industry experts continually work closely with our research and development group to develop innovative cryogenic technologies for the entire supply chain.
We continually strive to find ways to improve food safety and quality by working to enhance food preservation, storage, processing and transport. Our research and development centres are equipped with industry-leading facilities including a microbial laboratory, research laboratory and a pilot plant to measure, test and develop cryogenic and gas applications for the food and beverage industry.
Food Value Chain Steps
AGRICULTURE
Air Liquide’s gases and technologies are helping agricultural enterprises improve quality and productivity in a wide range of applications from harvest protection to greenhouses and modified atmosphere packaging. Through the intelligent use of gases and related technologies, Air Liquide has developed solutions for: protecting harvested grains and cereals from bug infestations with carbon dioxide, fire suppression, control of greenhouse atmospheres and preserving the freshness of your products with modified atmosphere packaging.
Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP)
Controlling the atmosphere around a food product is the key to extending product shelf life while maintaining freshness and attractiveness. Our experts understand the importance of gas flush packaging, a process that replaces package headspace with a beneficial gas or mixture of gases to dramatically slow bacterial growth and oxidative reactions. With Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP), extending quality shelf life results in fewer product returns, less waste and higher customer satisfaction, and allows for manufacturing and distribution optimization.
Air Liquide was one of the first to gain patents in modified atmosphere solutions. Our experts understand that packaging material and equipment is every bit as important as the right mixture of gas. Our technical support teams are in the field providing on-the-spot expertise for gas packaging.
Gases
Equipment
We offer a range of equipment for industrial gases, including on-site gas mixers.
Services
We offer a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
Brands
ALIGALTM is Air Liquide's premier brand for food and beverage gases and equipment. ALIGALTM solutions can be customized to meet your quality, hygienic and operational requirements.
CO2 enrichment in greenhouses
Air Liquide’s carbon dioxide (CO2) boosting solution can help increase the yield and growth rate of fruits, vegetables, plants and flowers cultivated in greenhouses. Achieving ideal carbon dioxide levels to produce flourishing plants, faster crop maturity and larger cash crops requires know-how. Our specialists work closely with customers in the fruits, vegetables and floral sectors to assess and integrate customized solutions into greenhouse cultivation practices.
Gases
Fire suppression
Many agricultural commodities are flammable. For example, grain dust is explosive and stored nuts can burn. However, combustion requires oxygen and shielding the flammable commodity from oxygen can prevent fire or explosion. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide are commonly used for this application.
Gases
PROCESSING
Air Liquide’s chilling mixing, modified atmosphere packaging and freezing solutions can enhance food-processing productivity. In the world of food processing, food safety, efficiency and product quality are primary concerns in addition to taste and texture. Air Liquide provides high-quality gases, services and technologies for chilling, freezing and packaging gases to help improve productivity and preserving the quality of almost any type of processed food product.
Chilling and Freezing
Air Liquide provides a wide range of chilling services that meet the industry’s varied needs and help maintain quality and freshness. Whether it’s preserving food quality during the grinding and mixing process, producing dry ice in a safe and sanitary environment, or moving temperature-sensitive foods via refrigerated transport, Air Liquide will develop custom solutions to meet your requirements – all while helping to improve productivity.
With new technologies changing the way we freeze and transport food, Air Liquide continues to stay ahead of the curve, providing the industry with the best tools and knowledge to achieve their freezing requirements. Our experts are knowledgeable and equipped to give advice on the right applications and gases whatever the size or complexity of the operation.
Gases
Air Liquide supplies food-grade liquid nitrogen as well as carbon dioxide in the liquid and solid (dry ice) state.
Equipment
Services
Our food experts will work closely with you to develop customized solutions for your operations.
Inerting and blanketing
Creating an inert atmosphere through control of oxygen levels prevents food products from oxidizing and spoiling and helps to preserve their chemical makeup. Air Liquide’s inerting blanketing and sparging applications address this challenge by eliminating or minimizing contact with air, extending shelf life, and maintaining important qualities like taste, color and texture. Our inerting solutions are tailored to fit customer needs for oxidation control and can be integrated with processing and packaging systems.
Gases
Equipment
We supply a wide range of equipment for industrial gases designed to safely deliver industrial gases to your instrument. Air Liquide’s VESTAL™ system is a customized nitrogen inerting and blanketing solution developed to support product quality and safety by keeping out oxygen and moisture.
Services
Our food industry experts are available to assist with processes such as maintaining a carbon dioxide cap on top of a fluid, integrating nitrogen or carbon dioxide injection systems into existing packaging lines and monitoring integrated oxygen management systems.
Brands
ALIGAL™ is Air Liquide's premier brand for food and beverage gases and equipment. ALIGALTM solutions can be customized to meet your quality, hygiene and operational requirements.
Individual quick freezing (IQF)
Air Liquide’s advanced immersion and tunnel freezers are ideal for a range of products, including baked goods, fruits and vegetables, seafood and prepared foods. Our IQF solutions eliminate the inconvenience of defrosting block frozen products and allow for easy portioning and mixing of pre-prepared frozen products, including small, sticky products such as fruits. Backed by our extensive knowledge of IQF, we have developed innovative and customizable solutions using both liquid nitrogen and liquid carbon dioxide.
Gases
Air Liquide offers food-grade liquid nitrogen and liquid carbon dioxide for use as a freezing agent.
Equipment
Air Liquide offers a range of freezing equipment for IQF to meet the diverse needs of the industry. We have developed industry-leading proprietary cryogenic freezing technologies including immersion, tunnel and spiral freezers.
Services
We offer a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
Cheese processing
Air Liquide has global experience in use of gases for cheese processing and packaging applications. Carbon dioxide is used for chilling, adjusting acidity and packaging. Shredded cheese commonly packaged with a blend of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, both of which are fungistatic and prevents clumping of the shredded products. The fungistatic properties of ALIGALTM result in extended shelf life.
Gases
- ALIGALTM Gas Mixtures
- Carbon Dioxide
Services
Our dairy experts will support you in optimizing processes such as milk standardization/acidification with carbon dioxide, curd chilling or quick chilling. We offer a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
Brands
ALIGALTM is Air Liquide's premier brand for food and beverage gasses and equipment. ALIGALTM solutions can be customized to meet your quality, hygiene and operational requirements.
Cryo-coating
Cryogenic coating is an efficient and cost-effective batch process for coating food products such as baked goods, pastas, meats and seafood. Our specialists understand the importance of fast cycle times, high-quality coating and coating thickness. Our cryo-coating solution ensures even and quick coating while preserving the attractive appearance and high quality, and can be customized for a broad range of batch food production lines. Precisely calibrated tumbling ensures the even blending of process sauces and liquid cryogen (either nitrogen or carbon dioxide) in alternating injection, resulting in enhanced batch quality control and improved productivity.
Gases
Air Liquide offers food-grade liquid nitrogen and liquid carbon dioxide.
Equipment
We supply a wide range of equipment for cryo-coating applications, including batch freezers and mixer blenders.
Cryogenic bottom injection
Cryogenic bottom injection is the ideal solution for temperature control of meats, seafood, dough, and a variety of processed foods during the mixing, kneading or grinding processes. Our innovative cryogenic bottom injection technology injects either liquid nitrogen (LIN) or liquid carbon dioxide (LCO2) into the bottom of a mixer or grinder to help ensure proper penetration, resulting in improved temperature control and forming, higher quality and throughput. Our bottom injection solutions combine high-quality food-grade gases with optimally designed equipment to achieve uniform and fast cooling through multiple injection points, as well as increased efficiency and quality.
Gases
Air Liquide offers food-grade liquid nitrogen and liquid carbon dioxide for cryogenic bottom injection.
Equipment
We supply industry-leading equipment for cryogenic bottom injection, including a liquid nitrogen sanitary injection system.
Services
Air Liquide’s food industry experts will assist you with integrating bottom injection systems into existing or new installations. We also assist with mixer and grinder conversions.
Slicing
Slicing meats, fish and cheeses for packaging can be challenging. Our slicing solution integrates crust freezing into existing processes to reduce loss and improve hygiene, yield, slice appearance and weight control, leading to significant efficiency gains. Air Liquide’s flexible systems, using either liquid nitrogen or liquid carbon dioxide, may be easily adapted to any production requirement for crust freezing, slicing and shingling. Our slicing solutions can increase slicer rates up to 50 percent. By replacing manual cutting with this automatic process, you can improve on-the-job safety and overall productivity.
Gases
Air Liquide offers food-grade liquid nitrogen and liquid carbon dioxide for use as a freezing agent.
Equipment
Air Liquide offers a range of freezing equipment for slicing applications. We have developed industry-leading proprietary cryogenic freezing technologies including immersion, tunnel and spiral freezers and batch freezers, as well as our Crust Flow™ solution for crust freezing.
Services
Our industry experts will assist you with integrating crust freezing into slicing operations. Along with our gas and equipment offers, we provide a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
Top snowing
Air Liquide’s top snowing systems utilize carbon dioxide (CO2) for on-demand process cooling of baked products, meats, seafood and processed foods. This simple chilling solution enables temperature control and offers a protective atmosphere while food products are being mixed or blended. Carbon dioxide snow horns mounted on the covers of blenders or tumblers expand liquid carbon dioxide into dry ice snow on the top of food products. The snow mixes easily with food products, providing spot cooling on demand. As dry ice sublimes to a vapor, there is no ingredient change to the food product. Carbon dioxide can be antimicrobial and anti-fungal, providing a protective atmosphere that can hinder additional bacterial growth in some food products.
Gases
Equipment
Air Liquide offers a carbon dioxide snow horn for top snowing applications. Contact us for more information.
Services
Along with our gas and equipment offers, we provide a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
Brands
ALIGAL™ is Air Liquide's premier brand for food and beverage gases and equipment. ALIGALTM solutions can be customized to meet your quality, hygiene and operational requirements.
Cryo-mechanical freezing
Using liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide, cryo-mechanical freezing can boost the capacity of a mechanical freezer and obtain enhanced yields while retaining essential moisture and minimizing damage to wet or sticky foods. Our specialists have developed a range of applications to enhance mechanical freezing processes by integrating systems such as cryogenic freezing tunnels or immersion freezers that quickly crust and encapsulate the outer surface and lock in moisture. Our cryogenic freezing systems can interface with your mechanical system. A cryogenic tunnel freezer or immersion freezer can be used to crust approximately 10% of a product and lock in moisture. It can then be finished in a mechanical freezer. The result: reduced product loss from moisture and sticking; improved throughput of your mechanical freezer with minimal capital expense; improved product quality (especially for delicate and sticky food); and reduced maintenance, sanitation and operational costs.
Gases
Equipment
Air Liquide has developed industry-leading proprietary cryogenic freezing technologies, including immersion and tunnel freezing systems.
Services
Our experts assist with the selection of optimal combination cryogenic and mechanical systems. We also provide on-site services such as installation and start-up support and maintenance.
PACKAGING
Controlling the atmosphere around a food product is key to extending product shelf life and maintaining an attractive customer presentation. Our experts understand the importance of gas flush packaging, a process that replaces package headspace with a beneficial gas or mixture of gases that will dramatically slow bacterial growth and oxidative reactions.
Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP)
With Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP), longer quality shelf life results in fewer product returns, less waste and higher customer satisfaction, and allows for optimization of production and distribution. Air Liquide leads the industry in modified atmosphere solutions. Our food industry experts understand that packaging material and equipment is every bit as important as the right mixture of gas. Our teams are in the field providing on-the-spot expertise for gas packaging of meats, fish, fruits and vegetables, baked goods, and dairy products.
Gases
Equipment
We offer a range of equipment for industrial gasses, including on-site gas mixers.
Brands
ALIGALTM is Air Liquide's premier brand for food and beverage gasses and equipment. ALIGALTM solutions can be customized to meet your quality, hygiene and operational requirements.
Services
Our food specialists will work closely with you to develop customized MAP solutions for your operations. We offer a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
Controlled atmosphere packaging
Controlled Atmosphere Packaging (CAP) allows products to be stored for up to one year at optimum gas concentrations for quality retention. This allows extended marketing for seasonal crops, enabling the grower and processor to earn higher profits while the consumer enjoys greater availability of high quality fruits and vegetables. With decades of experience in the food industry, our experts know the best gasses and concentrations to achieve optimum quality life.
Gases
Services
Our food specialists will work closely with you to develop customized MAP solutions for your operations. We offer a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
COLD TRANSPORTATION
The task of transporting foods with the cold chain intact requires precision. Refrigerated transport solutions must be customized according to travel distance, food types and to the trans-shipment period from production source to warehouse to market. Air Liquide leads the industry in refrigeration solutions for precise cooling requirements. We apply decades of experience in the food industry to define the optimal cold transport solution for any product, from gourmet ice creams to prepared meals in central kitchen.
Dry ice/Carbon Dioxide snow
Air Liquide’s dry ice or carbon dioxide (CO2) snow for cooling, chilling and freezing applications provides excellent results. Dry ice can be purchased in solid blocks or pellets, or generated on-site, which is highly sanitary and often more economical. Air Liquide’s snow horn systems agglomerate the small carbon dioxide particles into larger flakes for a variety of cooling and/or inerting applications.
Gases
Dry Ice+, which infuses dry ice pellets with ozone, combines the fast chilling capacity of dry ice with the added value of anti-microbial protection to keep perishables fresher and reduce cross-contamination from surface and airborne bacteria.
Equipment
Air Liquide offers a carbon dioxide snow horn for top snowing applications. Contact us for more information.
Services
We offer a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
- On-Site Services
RETAIL AND FOOD SERVICE
Cooling, chilling and freezing
We supply dry ice for cooling, chilling and freezing applications. Our Dry Ice+, which infuses dry ice pellets with ozone, combines the fast chilling capacity of dry ice with the added value of anti-microbial protection to keep perishables fresher and reduce cross-contamination from surface and airborne bacteria.
Gases
Services
We offer a range of on-site services including process analysis and optimization, installation and start-up support and inspection and maintenance.
Why Choose Us?
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Certified gases
Air Liquide meets the highest benchmarks for food safety and quality. -
Sanitary design
Accepted by the USDA Dairy and Poultry Program (2010 standard), Air Liquide’s industry-leading cryogenic freezing systems, ALIGAL™ and Cryo Immersion Unit-ACC™, are innovative and easy to clean. -
Industry expertise
Air Liquide continually improves and invents new applications and equipment for the food industry to tackle emerging challenges in food safety and quality.