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Achieving Crispiness in Microwavable Fried Snacks
IngredientsProcessing
INTRODUCTION
CJ CheilJedang is a global food and bio company that brings health, happiness and convenience to consumers around the world. Notably, our global flagship brand, bibigo, is at the forefront of promoting K-Foods and Korean culinary culture worldwide.
Background
Delivering a crispy, satisfying bite in microwavable ready-to-eat (RTE) products is an ongoing challenge – especially as consumer demand for high-quality, convenient meals continues to grow. This is particularly relevant in markets like APAC, where home cooking often relies on microwaves or air fryers due to customers’ lifestyle and constraints in their kitchen setup.
The product in focus is a frozen battered snack designed for at-home reheating. While fryers deliver an ideal crispy texture, microwaves remain the most common and practical appliance. The challenge lies in maintaining a crispy outer layer while preserving the juicy, tender interior, despite the moisture migration issues typical in microwave reheating.
The goal of this challenge is to identify and validate a food-safe, scalable, and cost-effective solution that ensures crispiness and sensory appeal after microwave preparation. Novel packaging design may be considered.
- Ingredient and formulation technologies (for example, marination techniques, water-holding agents, barrier layers, batter or premix systems)
- Process engineering solutions that influence texture and moisture retention during reheating
- Innovative packaging designs that enhance microwave performance
- Clean-label, consumer-friendly approaches that meet regulatory standards in key markets (Korea, the US, and the EU)
- Ideally with minimal changes to current production processes
Maintaining the balance between crisp outer texture and moist core is essential. Solutions that result in soggy or overly dry textures will not meet consumer expectations.
How might we ensure the crispiness of microwavable frozen fried snacks, whilst retaining moisture and texture?
requirements and considerations
- Achieve crispiness of the outer coating after microwaving, similar to frying
- Manage moisture migration during freezing, storage, and microwave reheating to avoid sogginess
- Integrate seamlessly with existing recipes and industrial production lines (minor changes in the processing line preferred)
- Applicable to various fried snack formats
- Maintain stability throughout the frozen storage and reheating process
- A minimum shelf life of six months (for frozen products)
- Ensure ease of use for consumers, with no additional steps required beyond standard microwave reheating
- Perform well across a range of microwave power settings
- If a new ingredient is introduced, it must not negatively alter the flavor or colour profile of the final product
- The proposed solution must achieve margin neutrality to the production cost.
- It must be scalable for mass production and suitable for high-volume processing with minimal or no capital investment.
Incentives
RESOURCES
Info Session
To revisit the full discussion on this challenge statement from our virtual Info Session, see the presentation slides (download here) and video below: