Reducing Food Waste: Better Preservation Techniques for Ice Cream

Overview

Objectives/Goals 24% of all ice cream is wasted every year in the United States creating a tremendous waste of resources. Formation of ice crystals is one of the main reasons people throw ice cream away. My hypothesis is that better preservation techniques will reduce the formation of ice crystals in ice cream resulting in less ice cream wastage. Methods/Materials To test my hypothesis, five different ice cream preservation techniques (plastic bag, plastic wrap, Sponge, Ice Pack and metal hitch) were tested against a Base Case with no extra preservation. In addition, "before" and "after" taste and appearance tests were conducted with test subjects to see if any preservation technique had an impact on the flavor or look of the ice cream. 18 tubs of ice cream were observed every other day for three weeks, and ice crystal counts (per square inch) and sizes were measured. Results My tests indicated that there is a correlation between ice crystal count, preservation technique, flavor, and appearance. Two preservation techniques (Sponge and Ice Pack), produced significantly lower ice crystal counts than the Base Case, as well as smaller average crystal sizes. The "Sponge" technique also resulted in the smallest decline in both flavor quality and appearance appeal according to the test subjects. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion, my hypothesis has been confirmed that better preservation techniques can reduce the formation of ice crystals, which results in better flavor and appearance preservation. Lower crystal counts and better looking and tasting ice cream should result in less ice cream being thrown away.

Competition history

• CSEF 2015 Product Science (Physical) (Junior Division Only) · Entry J2027

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Physical Sciences projects
• CSEF Physical Sciences projects
• Every CSEF 2015 project