At HEMUS 2026, the 17th International Exhibition for Defence Products and Services, I was given a pouch of Bulgarian Space Food Freeze-Dried Fruit, writes Bob Morrison.
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Bulgaria was just the third country in the world to produce food specifically for consumption by space travellers when its national Institute of Cryobiology and Lyophilisation, forerunner to today’s Bulgarian Institute of Cryobiology and Food Technology (Institutŭt po Kriobiologiya i Khranitelni Tekhnologii), joined the Soviet-led Interkosmos Space Programme in the 1970s. Today the Institute is still heavily involved in space research, particularly in the fields of cryobiology and lyophilisation, and with a focus on future manned missions to Mars.
Bulgarian cosmonauts participated in two missions to Soviet space stations, in 1979 and 1988, and varied nutritionally-balanced lightweight freeze-dried Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner ration menus were provided for them in tablet form. Today Bulgarian Space Food rations developed by the Sofia-based Institute are used for Antarctic and Himalayan expeditions where weight and volume of supplies are critical.
In simple terms freeze-drying, or lyophilisation, is a very low temperature dehydration process that involves simultaneously freezing and lowering the pressure of an object to remove the water it contains through sublimation. Unlike simple dehydrated foodstuffs where heat has been used to remove the water content, lyophilised fruit and veg does not need to have water added to reconstitute prior to consumption. According to the Institute, “freeze-dried fruits and vegetables are characterised by minimum moisture, high carbohydrate content, vitamins, mineral salts, a maximum preserved enzyme system, flavour complex, and high microbial purity”.
I sampled some of the Bulgarian freeze-dried fruits when out in Plovdiv at HEMUS 2026, but as the very high doses of radiotherapy I was subjected to following my 2024 throat cancer operation have resulted in a persistently dry mouth,(a small price to pay in return for staying alive) consumption of lyophilised foodstuffs can pose some issues for me. So for the purpose of this review my daughter Lynne, whose regular dietary regime consists primarily of fruit and vegetables, stepped forward to provide the following assessment for us. Thanks Lynne.
In my opinion, as someone who through choice consumes a lot of fruit in my diet, overall the Bulgarian freeze-dried fruit was not as flavoursome or satisfying as fresh. However, if the situation demands it, these fruits would provide a suitable alternative – especially as the drying process retains the vitamins. Preferably I felt they should be accompanied by a drink of water, but this was not actually essential. Generally, all were lot more chewy and milder flavoured than fresh fruit:
- Banana: chewy, tastes like banana
- Plum: softer, sour
- Apple: sweet, dries out the mouth
- Strawberry: very chewy, mild flavour
- Peach: softest, melts in the mouth, the best one and a good replacement
- Pineapple: sweet, light and strangely spongy
From a military user’s perspective, the biggest advantages lyophilised food offers over dehydrated has to be the weight, volume and time savings. Unlike with dried food pouch meals there is no requirement to source or carry fresh water to reconstitute a meal, and ‘space fruit’ can be consumed on the move without needing to wait several minutes for the pouch meal to reconstitute. However a warm meal can often do wonders for morale and a dry pouch meal is more compact and lighter to carry than a wet pouch meal if suitable water is available at the meal point, so no particular type of ration is necessarily better than the others… unless, of course, you are a space traveller.
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