What other new opportunities lie within the freeze-dried food market?

Over the past few years, while many new consumer brands have managed to capture significant attention in the market,不少 of their products still fall short because they lack a solid foundation of genuine user demand. As a result, the so-called "brand awareness" often fails to translate into sustained repeat purchases or customer loyalty. Instead, these brands tend to attract only early adopters—consumers driven by novelty and seeking experience-based consumption. Amidst a growing sea of highly similar products, consumers are increasingly losing interest.

"Philip Kotler, known as the 'Father of Modern Marketing,' once noted in his book *Marketing Management*: 'Demand cannot be created—it can only be discovered.' For niche consumers looking to break into mainstream markets and reignite consumers' desire to buy, a deep transformation of the product is absolutely essential."
In the food and beverage industry, technological innovation serves as both a barrier to entry and the most direct path to creating entirely new product categories. Looking back at the global food industry's century-long evolution, it’s clear that the "game-changing products" that have made lasting marks in history invariably stem from breakthroughs and innovative applications of scientific and technological advancements.

Today, we're also seeing more and more consumer brands turning their attention toward "technology" itself, as groundbreaking innovations—such as gene editing, purification and separation, chemical modification and synthesis, targeted fermentation, and freeze-drying—are unlocking increasingly diverse possibilities on the "production side" of consumer goods.

In the face of sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks, a range of freeze-dried foods has emerged as consumers' new favorites—such as freeze-dried fruits, vegetables, and even freeze-dried coffee. According to data from Tmall, sales of freeze-dried foods surged by 300% over the three-year period from 2019 to 2021.

According to the "China Freeze-Dried Food Industry Market Demand and Investment Planning Analysis Report" released by the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, China's freeze-dried food market was valued at approximately 1.8 billion yuan in 2019. Conservatively estimated, the market is expected to maintain an average annual compound growth rate of 15% over the next five years, reaching a size exceeding 4.2 billion yuan by 2025.

Freeze-drying technology: the cutting-edge "black tech" that preserves the color, aroma, taste, and shape of ingredients.

Tear open the delicate little package, take out the brightly colored freeze-dried fruit pieces, and pop them into your mouth—crisp, crunchy, and irresistibly sweet. Products like these are increasingly winning the hearts of young people.
What are freeze-dried foods? Freeze-dried foods are short for vacuum freeze-dried foods, also known as FD (Freeze Dried) products.

Freeze-drying technology dates back to its use by South American indigenous peoples. Potatoes and other tubers grown in lowland areas were transported to higher altitudes, pressed to remove their liquids, and then stored overnight at freezing temperatures. This process created a durable food known as chuño, perfect for long-term storage and serving as an essential emergency ration.

It wasn't until the 1890s that freeze-drying technology truly entered the industrialization process. Richard Altmann developed a freeze-drying method, but it wasn't until the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s that this process gained widespread recognition.

It was at this very moment that Tival and Elser filed a patent for a freeze-drying system, which was later refined after Shackell invented the vacuum chamber in 1909—and was further developed by Nestlé in 1938. By the 1950s and 1960s, as consumer demands shifted, freeze-drying technology began to find applications in industries such as pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and food production.

Unlike frying, baking, or spray-drying used in powder production, freeze-drying works by placing frozen food in a vacuum environment, where sublimation occurs—transforming the ice directly into vapor, thus dehydrating and drying the food. Simply put, freeze-drying is essentially a sublimation process applied to frozen products. Sublimation happens when frozen liquid begins to transition directly into its gaseous state. The entire freeze-drying process typically involves three main stages: pre-freezing, rapid freezing, and vacuum drying.

Food freeze-drying involves rapidly pre-freezing fresh foods such as vegetables, meat, and fruits, then, under vacuum conditions, sublimating the water within the food directly from solid to gas. This is followed by further drying through adsorption to remove residual bound water, ultimately achieving low-temperature dehydration.

Thanks to the unique freeze-drying process, this method maximizes the preservation of fresh food's color, aroma, taste, texture, and nutritional value—allowing it to remain shelf-stable at room temperature for over five years without the need for preservatives. Additionally, since the final product has had most of its moisture removed, it boasts advantages like being lightweight, easy to carry and transport. It’s ready-to-eat as is, or you can give it a quick boost: just a few minutes of rehydration restores it to its fresh, vibrant state. Truly, this technology represents cutting-edge innovation in the food industry.

In fact, freeze-dried foods are already quite widespread in several developed countries. In nations like Japan, the United States, and Europe, they have been vigorously promoted and embraced, with both processing technologies and marketing strategies steadily maturing. Beyond home use and restaurants, this technology has also found extensive applications across various industries—including mountaineering, travel, scientific expeditions, and military logistics—where its unique advantages and features are fully leveraged.

Relevant data show that the U.S. is leading in the rapid development of freeze-dried foods, with freeze-dried products accounting for 40% to 50% of all convenient food items sold across the country. Currently, the U.S. consumes 6 million tons of freeze-dried food annually, followed by Japan at 2 million tons and France at 1.6 million tons—while other countries also report significant consumption figures.

Domestic markets are growing rapidly, with freeze-dried foods emerging as a new growth driver for the industry.

In China, freeze-dried foods emerged relatively late. Initially, their higher costs and prices resulted in limited market acceptance. However, in recent years, as people’s living standards have improved, their pace of life has quickened, and consumer choices have become more diverse, freeze-dried food manufacturers have stepped up production and R&D efforts domestically, making these convenient and nutritious products increasingly accessible to everyday consumers.

China's freeze-dried foods are primarily categorized into fruit, vegetable, convenience food, and meat & seafood types, with fruit and vegetable products making up the largest share. Fruits account for about 40% of China's freeze-dried food market, while vegetables represent roughly 20%.
The rise of the freeze-dried food market has drawn in manufacturers from diverse industries, and today, an increasing number of snack food companies are jumping into R&D and investing heavily in freeze-dried products. These companies are now producing freeze-dried foods, snacks, soup-based beverages, and even pet food—products tailored to meet domestic market demands while perfectly aligning with Chinese tastes and consumption habits. This growing diversity is significantly expanding and enriching China’s freeze-dried food market.

All new developments merely repeat and amplify phenomena that have already emerged. In his globally acclaimed book, *Manufacturing Consumers*, Anthony Galluzzo offers a fresh definition of the relationship between goods, consumption, and people—and provides valuable insights into how businesses empower the masses to "invent" their own identities through consumption.

By carefully refining, adapting, and upgrading existing technologies, applying them to new products and product categories, and enabling industrial-scale production, we’re witnessing a major wave of opportunity for reshaping consumer goods.

For instance, freeze-drying technology, originally used in other industries, has now been adopted across new sectors and fields. During this widespread adoption, the process has undergone further optimization and adaptation, leading to enhanced products and experiences in these emerging industries—such as improved flavor retention, greater convenience in use, and alignment with today’s global food trends toward "green," "convenient," and "health-focused" foods.

In the future, there are still many exciting scenarios and product categories waiting to be explored in the field of freeze-drying technology.