Pork consumption is widespread worldwide, and freezing is the main method used to preserve and transport this product.

In a recent study by a group of Chinese researchers (Xue et al., 2025) to evaluate the efficiency and quality of different thawing methods, experiments were conducted using samples of this meat (2 kg), comparing the natural air thawing (NAT) process, vacuum steam thawing (VST) and an innovative method based on vacuum sublimation and rehydration thawing (VSRT). In particular, during the trials, energy consumption and thawing efficiency were assessed by analysing the process time, weight loss and the main quality parameters of the product.

The results show that the VSRT method delivers the shortest thawing time (approx. 55 min), with reductions of 55.37% and 34.61% respectively compared with the NAT and VST treatments.