What are the Differences between Spray Dried Fruit Powder and Freeze Dried Fruit Powder?

What’s the difference between SD Fruit Powder and Freeze Dried Fruit Powder? Recently, I have been asked this question by my customer, so I think it would be a good idea to write an article to show everyone who wants to know. In fact, I am not sure whether I could explain it clearly or completely, but I think people can have a brief idea about them after reading my article today.

First, I think we need to know the definitions of spray dried fruit powder and freeze dried fruit powder. Spray drying is a way to produce dry powder from slurry or liquid by drying with a hot gas rapidly. And freeze drying is a technology that works by freezing the materials first, then sublimate the frozen water in the material into gas by reducing the surrounding pressure. So, after knowing their definition, we know the spray dryer and freeze dryer must be very different. Therefore, we also can know their first difference is the temperature. Spray dried fruit powder is produced in hot temperature, but freeze drying fruit powder is produced in extremely low temperature.

Freeze Dried Lemon Powder

After knowing the difference of producing temperature, we can see the degree of health, the flavor, the color, and the nutrition contents of them are very different. As we all know, bacterial is hard to survive or grow in low temperature, vice versa. So, in the process of production, freeze drying is a good method to keep the high degree of health of food. And the flavor, color and nutrition of food might be changed or lost in high temperature, so spray dried fruit powder might not bring you great tasted powder with full of nutrition. But freeze dried fruit powder is different. The method of freeze drying is a process of sublimating in low temperature, so the flavor, color, taste and original nutrition of food can be kept and unchanged. So, that’s the reason why freeze dried food is much more popular nowadays.

Oh, don’t ever think that spray dried fruit powder is not good by comparing with freeze-dried one. If you pursue the consistent particle size distribution, you should use spray drying. I think it would be the third difference. Freeze drying method can’t have such good effect on this aspect. Anyway, it won’t be a big consideration in fruit powder production. People will like to value this great advantage of spray drying when they are producing some chemical ingredients, such as catalysts. But to fruit or vegetable, it seems freeze dried food powder is excellent enough on the consistency.

It might be a little mess, but it’s quite clear in fact. Since we only need to focus on the differences of eventual products, then we will have an idea on what’s the biggest difference and how to choose them. No matter what kind of product or technology, they have the reasons to exist. So, what we need to do is to know them when we need and do a wise choice. I think no matter spray dried fruit powder or freeze dried fruit powder bulk, they are both very great and deserve to be chose.