Freezing and cold storage are important refrigeration processes widely applied in food preservation. A large amount of information is available in the literature on freezing of foods; nevertheless, very few data related to high porosity food such as bread are available, especially at sub-freezing temperature. The knowledge of the thermophysical properties of foods are necessary for the simulation of heat and mass transfer phenomena and the prediction of time/temperature profiles during food freezing. Such simulation can be used, for example, to understand the possible bottleneck of processes. The objective of this research is to present and develop methods to characterize some thermophysical properties, using a cellulose sponge as a model material. This work is presented in two joined articles. This first article is related to some heat and mass transfer properties. The experimental data and their associated models are presented in the temperature range between )40 and 30 C.