For the prediction of temperature change in meat
products during freezing, accurate knowledge of thermodynamic
properties such as specific heat and thermal
conductivity is necessary. These thermophysical properties
change over a broad temperature range due to the
gradual ice formation in meat. For optimal product
quality and energy savings freezing operations must be
optimally tuned to the type of meat product. However,
the meat products can vary largely in their composition
of water, proteins, fats, carbohydrates and salts. For the
wide range of (cooked) meat products used in the meat
industry it is an immense work to determine the thermodynamic
properties experimentally. Hence, it is
advantageous if these properties can be determined from
the composition data of the cooked meat products. A
critical parameter for the prediction of the thermophysical
properties is the initial freezing point Tf , as the
ice fraction changes as ð1 T =Tf Þ (Pham, 1996).