Five Frozen Food Facts

Frozen foods do not require any added preservatives to keep them safe and consumable, because microbes cannot grow on food that is at a temperature less than 0°F. The microbes do not die at that temperature, but they stop multiplying and can come back as food is unfrozen.

Despite some old wives’ tales, freezing food does not remove any nutrients.

Freezer burn is just the result of air hitting frozen food and allowing the ice to sublimate; other color changes can be blamed on long freezing times or poor packaging. It might look gross, but if your frozen food has maintained a proper temperature, it is fine to eat.

Freezing food typically keeps items edible indefinitely, although taste and quality may diminish over time. Some items that stay tasty even after long freezes include uncooked game, poultry, and meat, which are still good after up to a year in the freezer.

Even though freezing food was used as a storage technique in cold weather climates for many years, it is believed it was first applied to industrial food sales sometime in the 1800s, when a Russian company froze a small quantity of duck and geese and shipped them to London. By 1899, the Baerselman Bros. company adapted frozen storage for their own Russia-to-England food shipping business, though they initially only operated during cold weather months. Birdseye fact here LINK.

What's in a Name, Birdseye

The namesake of Birds Eye Frozen Foods was the company’s founder, Clarence Birdseye, who introduced the concept of flash freezing to the world. He developed his technique after seeing food freezing in action in the Arctic, and noting how much better frozen fish tasted if it had been frozen immediately after been caught. He helped pioneer flash freezing as a frozen food standard and helped develop in-store freezer cases and refrigerated boxcars that allowed his frozen foods to travel in comfort.


Birdseye’s food was the first frozen food sold commercially in the United States. On March 6, 1930, Birds Eye frozen foods were put on sale at Davidson’s Market in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first product of its kind.