Freezer spacers have become an excellent resource in the food handling industries, with benefits for efficiency, sanitation, energy costs and much more. But aluminum and plastic, two common freezer spacer materials, have different characteristics. Choosing the right one for your application can help you maximize the benefits of your material handling equipment and reduce costs. Let’s take a closer look at the differences between aluminum and plastic freezer spacers and how to choose the right one for your operation.
Jump to Sections:
Understanding the Differences: Plastic vs. Aluminum Freezer Spacers
The Benefits of Using Freezer Spacers
Choose Cherry’s Material Handling for All Your Freezer Spacer Needs
What Are Freezer Spacers?
Freezer spacers are used during material handling to improve the speed of blast freezing. Blast freezing centers around concepts of airflow and surface area. Cold air needs to reach the surface of the product to effectively freeze it. When layers of product are stacked upon each other, surface area is reduced, slowing the process and creating inconsistencies across the stack.
Freezer spacers, placed in between these layers, allow for better cold air circulation and more efficient freezing. They can reduce freezing time by 30%. They’re also useful for reducing water buildup from thawing and washing. Steel racks can sometimes be used for a similar purpose, but they take up more space and aren’t nearly as portable or flexible as freezer spacers. They’re also more expensive. Some reasons people turn to freezer spacers are because they are nestable, durable and easy to clean with power washers or scrubbing.
Wood pallets have been used in the past, but this material is porous and has many cracks, making it susceptible to breakage during high-powered cleaning. These qualities also make wood a great home for microorganism growth. The materials of choice are now plastic and aluminum, which have smooth surfaces inhospitable to bacteria.
Understanding the Differences: Plastic vs. Aluminum Freezer Spacers
Plastic and aluminum are both high-performing materials that resist bacterial growth and ease manual loading processes. Here’s how they compare.
Plastic Freezer Spacers
Plastic spacers are ideal for freezing perishable items like food. Raised areas provide space for cold air to move through the layers of product. This creates faster, more uniform freezing. Plastic freezer spacers are available in more varieties than aluminum spacers, some of which could better meet your application needs. These styles include:
- Egg crate: Spacers with egg crate designs can save room by nesting on top of each other. They also reduce strain on employees with their lightweight construction. They’re durable enough to stand up to extreme temperatures and frequent handling.
- MAXI-design: Offering three times the airflow of standard spacers, MAXI-design freezer spacers can reduce freezing time by as much as 25%. These are also nestable and can accommodate up to 3,600 pounds.
- Open profile: An open-profile freezer spacer has larger openings and cavities for greater efficiency in blast freezing applications. Here at Cherry’s Material Handling, they consist of a recyclable high-density polyethylene (HDPE) material that’s environmentally sustainable, lightweight and nestable. They’re also the material of choice if you need resistance to chemicals and acids.
- Structural foam: Structural foam freezer spacers are well-suited to unstable layers and won’t leave impressions on fresh products. They use a lattice design and thermoplastic injection molded components that add rigidity, and they can be used for wet or dry products. We make these pallets with materials approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for food contact for added safety and peace of mind.
Aluminum Freezer Spacers
Aluminum offers excellent durability and highly efficient temperature distribution. This is because aluminum is a conductive material. It conducts the cold from the air into the food. Like plastic freezer spacers, aluminum freezer spacers are easy to clean and sanitize and don’t provide an environment for bacteria to grow.
Despite its strength, aluminum is especially light, thanks to its high strength-to-weight ratio. It can support some of the heaviest loads and resist damage while being easy to move and practical for employees to work with.
Aluminum freezer spacers are often a good choice for more consistent, steady applications, where you know the size and shape of the loads going on the spacers. If your products change often or you’re working with softer items like produce, plastic options may offer greater flexibility. Aluminum may be necessary for freezing items in extreme cold.
The Benefits of Using Freezer Spacers
Organizations use aluminum and plastic freezer spacers for many different reasons that affect everything from efficiency to company reputation. These reasons include:
- Reliability: Without a freezer spacer, a stack of food often freezes inconsistently. For many foods, inconsistent or warm temperatures lead to bacteria and foodborne illnesses. Implementing a spacer can keep these concerns at bay. Inconsistent temperatures can also lead to product damage and lost revenue, so reducing inventory vulnerability adds peace of mind and greater security.
- Reduced energy costs: Energy costs make up a massive part of the budget of cold storage companies, but spacers add efficiency to the process. Since they improve airflow and help the cold air reach more parts of the product, they allow you to freeze food in less time and save on the energy costs required to get the product to the right temperature.
- Sanitation: In the food industry, sanitary conditions are non-negotiable and are a part of meeting safety regulations. Both aluminum and plastic options are easy to clean with their smooth, antimicrobial surfaces. You can power-wash them or use wipes for quick, low-cost cleaning that minimizes cross-contamination. In addition to the obvious benefits of avoiding sickness, safe products are also key to eliciting customer confidence. Just one outbreak of illness can significantly damage a food brand.
- Durability: Some materials used in freezer spaces, like wood, don’t last long in the tough conditions of extremely cold temperatures and harsh cleaning demands. Plastic and aluminum freezer spacers do well in both environments and can last for years when properly taken care of.
- Sustainability: Both our aluminum and plastic freezer spacer designs are 100% recyclable, making them more environmentally friendly options. They can help your brand image, compliance strategies and the planet itself.
Choose Cherry’s Material Handling for All Your Freezer Spacer Needs
At Cherry’s Material Handling, our aluminum and plastic freezer spacers come in various styles and offer competitive pricing. We can help you get the right freezer spacers at the right prices, regardless of your business’s size. Whether you just need to add a few spacers to your existing collection or buy some for a small business, our small-quantity purchase options make it simple. We also accommodate large purchases for more sizable companies.
Founded in the United States, we infuse quality into every product we make to better support our customers in creating safe, efficient and environmentally friendly workspaces. Browse our freezer spacers online, or reach out to us to learn more.
