ProFood World April 2022

SSV Drum Motors

Reduce Water and Time for Washdown by 50%

APRIL 2022

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(888) 326-1476 • vandergraaf.com/PF

2/8/22 12:10 PM

SSV Drum Motors

Reduce Water & Time for Washdown by 50%

The SSV Series Drum Motor with the belt profile machined directly onto the drum, drives modular, wire mesh, and monolithic thermoplastic conveyor belts without the use of sprockets, reducing washdown time and water usage by 50%.

With all drive components enclosed inside the drum, and designed for 80,000 hours of service life before maintenance, the sprocketless SSV Drum Motor is the most hygienic and efficient drive solution for belt conveyors.

Drum profile available for a variety of belt manufacturers, including Cambridge®, Gates®, Habasit®, Intralox®, Volta®, and Wire Belt®.

Learn more at vandergraaf.com/PF

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2/8/22 12:11 PM

April 2022

FDA PROPOSED RULE FOR TRACEABILITY—

ARE YOU PREPARED? How to Beat the ‘Great Resignation’ The Art of Scaling Up a Hazy IPA Poland’s Meat Industry Reaches Out to the World New Product Innovations

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READY-MADE SOLUTIONS To Your Specific Bulk Bag Handling Problem

FILL

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Fill one bulk bag per week or 20 per hour with REAR-POST, TWIN-CENTERPOST™ and SWING-DOWN® Bulk Bag Fillers

Loosen material solidified in bulk bags during storage and shipment with BLOCK-BUSTER® Bulk Bag Conditioners

Save time, money and space with BULK-OUT® Multi-Function Bulk Bag Dischargers and Weigh Batching Stations

Flexicon’s extra-broad model range, patented innovations and performance enhancements let you exact-match a filler to your specific cost and capacity requirements. Patented TWINCENTERPOST™ models maximize strength, accessibility to bag loops and economy.

Cantilevered REAR-POST models allow passthrough roller conveyors. SWING-DOWN® models pivot the fill-head to the operator at floor level for quick, easy and safe spout connections.

Optional mechanical and pneumatic conveyors.

Opposing hydraulic rams drive contoured conditioning plates to crush and loosen solidified bulk material safely and easily. Bulk bags can be raised, lowered and rotated to allow complete conditioning of the entire bag through the use of automated turntables and scissor lifts, or electric hoist and trolley assemblies. Offered as stand-alone units for loading with forklift or electric hoist and trolley, or integrated with bulk bag dischargers for reduced cost, footprint and loading time.

Condition, de-lump, screen, feed, weigh batch, combine with liquids, and convey as you discharge, with a custom-integrated, performance-guaranteed, dust-free discharger system. Offered as stand-alone units for loading with forklift or electric hoist and trolley, split frames for low headroom areas, economical half frames and mobile frames. All available with mechanical and pneumatic conveyors, flow promotion devices, bag dump access, automated weigh batching packages, and much more.

Stand-alone units to complete, automated systems integrated with mechanical and pneumatic conveyors

See the full range of fast-payback equipment at flexicon.com: Flexible Screw Conveyors, Tubular Cable Conveyors, Pneumatic Conveying Systems, Bulk Bag Unloaders, Bulk Bag Conditioners, Bulk Bag Fillers, Bag Dump Stations, Drum/Box/Container Dumpers, Weigh Batching and Blending Systems, and Automated Plant-Wide Bulk Handling Systems

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Smart in every way Meet the new GEA SmartPacker CX400 D-Zip This continuous motion vertical packaging machine creates re-closeable stand-up pouches for retail and food service. It combines fast, high-quality operation with maximum flexibility and uptime. In addition to producing premium quality D-Zip bags, this easy-to-use machine can produce more than 10 different bag styles for a wide variety of applications such as candy, nuts, frozen fruits and grated cheese.

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4/1/22 10:01 AM

This is the Way

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2/15/21 10:02 3:11 PM 4/1/22 AM

APRIL 2022

CONTENTS ON THE COVER FDA Proposed Rule for Traceability— Are You Prepared?

50 DEPARTMENTS 6 From the Editor

Automation doesn’t have to require a complete overhaul.

9 In the News

Poland’s meat industry reaches out to the world.

Perishable items and nut butters will be among the foods requiring increased traceability records under the FDA proposed ruling expected later this year.

Automation, increased due diligence, and perhaps additional staffing are in the offing for affected food processors.

20

14 OpX Intel

See how to beat the ‘Great Resignation.’

18 Packaging Technology

A multi-component package serves up berry yogurt parfaits.

43 Plant Floor New Products

Take an inside look at the latest machinery and technologies for production facilities.

50 Case Study: Industrial Arts

A brewery scales up a hazy IPA.

54 Case Study: Cucina Fresca An easy washdown thermoformer reduces downtime.

56 Case Study: Amway An energy drink meets skyrocketing demand through the digital thread.

59 Case Study: Hardy Buoys An automated bagging line helps a smoked fish business meet demand.

FEATURES 28 Tech Today: Moving Maintenance From Preventive to Predictive The technology is available to provide the kind of maintenance know-how that will keep operations humming along. But the average plant will need to overcome some hurdles to realize the benefits.

28

DRY PROCESSING SOLUTIONS 35 Case Study: Vitaquest A contract manufacturer of nutraceuticals and functional foods typically opts for vacuum conveyor technology. The mobile version maximizes production versatility, making cleaning and changeovers easier.

39 New Products

63 Tech Perspective Inject-tumble-cook creates a succulent chicken with higher yield. www.profoodworld.com

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| April 2022 |

PROFOOD WORLD

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3/31/22 5:01 PM

ProFood World ISSN 2476-0676

EDITORIAL

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AARON HAND 312/488-3392 ahand@pmmimediagroup.com

CONNECT WITH US @ProFoodWorld

SENIOR EXECUTIVE EDITOR JOYCE FASSL jfassl@pmmimediagroup.com

@ProFoodWorld

NEW PRODUCTS EDITOR MORGAN SMITH msmith@pmmimediagroup.com

www.linkedin.com/ showcase/profoodworld

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS MELISSA GRIFFEN, HANK HOGAN, STEPHEN PERRY, STEPHEN SCHLEGEL, JEFFREY BARACH

B U S I N E S S S TA F F PUBLISHER PATRICK YOUNG 610/251-2579 pyoung@pmmimediagroup.com BRAND OPERATIONS MANAGER CLAUDIA SMITH 312/222-1345 csmith@pmmimediagroup.com

ART CREATIVE DIRECTOR DAVID BACHO ART DIRECTOR KATHY TRAVIS

AU D I E N C E A N D T E C H N O L O GY SENIOR DIRECTOR, DIGITAL AND DATA ELIZABETH KACHORIS DIRECTOR, WEBSITES + UX/UI JEN KREPELKA SENIOR DATA ANALYST LAUREN SANZ

PUBLISHING PRESIDENT JOSEPH ANGEL EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT DAVID NEWCORN PUBLISHER PATRICK YOUNG VICE PRESIDENT, CONTENT AND BRAND STRATEGY JIM CHRZAN DIRECTOR, EMERGING BRANDS COMMUNITY KIM OVERSTREET DIRECTOR, MARKETING SHARON TAYLOR SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER AMBER MILLER FINANCIAL SERVICES MANAGER JANET FABIANO

ADVE R TI S I N G PRODUCTION MANAGER GEORGE SHURTLEFF SENIOR DIRECTOR, CLIENT SUCCESS AND MEDIA OPERATIONS KELLY GREEBY DIRECTOR, PRODUCT STRATEGY ALICIA PETTIGREW

ADVE R TI S I N G SALE S PUBLISHER PATRICK YOUNG pyoung@pmmimediagroup.com • 610/251-2579 REGIONAL SALES MANAGER BRIAN J. GRONOWSKI bgronowski@pmmimediagroup.com • 440/564-5920 REGIONAL SALES MANAGER DANIEL SMITH dsmith@pmmimediagroup.com • 312/205-7935 VICE PRESIDENT, SALES WENDY SAWTELL wsawtell@pmmimediagroup.com • 847/784-0520 REGIONAL MANAGER LEO GUENTHER guenther@packworld.com • 904/377-7865 REGIONAL MANAGER JIM POWERS jpowers@automationworld.com • 312/925-7793 REGIONAL MANAGER CHRISTINE J. SMALLWOOD csmallwood@pmmimediagroup.com • 770/664-4600 ACCOUNT MANAGER JAKE BROCK jbrock@pmmimediagroup.com • 312/205-7903 PUBLISHER, AUTOMATION WORLD KURT BELISLE kbelisle@pmmimediagroup.com • 815/549-1034 PUBLISHER, HEALTHCARE PACKAGING LIZ TIERNEY tierney@packworld.com • 815/861-2992 PUBLISHER, OEM MAGAZINE JIM CHRZAN jchrzan@pmmimediagroup.com • 847/830-2915

ProFood World • PMMI Media Group 401 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60611 Phone: 312/222-1010 • Fax: 312/222-1310 Email: info@pmmimediagroup.com • Web: www.profoodworld.com PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies 12930 Worldgate Drive, Suite 200, Herndon, VA 20170 Phone: 571/612-3200 • Fax: 703/243-8556 • Web: www.pmmi.org Staff at PMMI Media Group can be contacted at info@pmmimediagroup.com.

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PROFOOD WORLD

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

3/31/22 3:41 PM

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4/1/22 10:03 AM

FROM THE EDITOR AARON HAND | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Automation Doesn’t Have to Require a Complete Overhaul Small changes can make big improvements to the efficiency of your operations.

A

utomation is such a broad term. It can mean many things to many people, and its connotation can change vastly depending on time and circumstance. But it does not have to be the huge undertaking that many people might think of when faced with the prospect of starting such a project.

It seems that, particularly with the restraints that the COVID-19 pandemic introduced in factories and the extreme workforce challenges being faced, the food and beverage industry is beginning to come to terms with the need to automate. That can be more than a little daunting—and, in some cases, it is admittedly a huge undertaking. But there are all kinds of small steps you can take that will go a long way.

At a recent tour of TopPop’s plants in New Jersey, one stark example showed how much just a bit of automation could change the landscape for the contract packager. On one side of the aisle, TopPop had 16 to 18 people grabbing six of each of the two flavors of alcoholic ice pops and placing them into 12-pack boxes. On the other side of the aisle, it had upgraded to machines that served up six of each flavor to just nine workers to do the same job. It not only reduced the workforce needed on that side of the aisle, but also provided them with social distancing.

At PACK EXPO East, Hoosier Feeder Co. told me about a project they’re working on for a major food supplier. Already working to make sure the client’s croissants oriented in the correct direction, they were struck by the workers manually pulling sausage patties out of boxes and placing them onto those croissants. The supplier is now at the final stages of modifying the feeder so that it drops the patties directly onto each bun.

Not every automation project is going to be a small one, of course. Some will be huge ventures that require more rip and replace. But there are a lot of opportunities for small changes to make big improvements in efficiency.

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

CHRISTINE BENSE CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Ventura Coastal GREG FLICKINGER SENIOR VP, OPERATIONS Green Thumb Industries Inc. JOHN HILKER DIRECTOR OF MANUFACTURING Blommer Chocolate Company VINCE NASTI VP, OPERATIONS Nation Pizza & Foods JIM PRUNESTI VP, ENGINEERING Conagra Brands LISA RATHBURN VP, ENGINEERING T. Marzetti MARK SHAYE VP, ENGINEERING Ken’s Foods TONY VANDENOEVER DIRECTOR, SUPPLY CHAIN ENGINEERING PepsiCo DIANE WOLF FORMER VP OF ENGINEERING AND OPERATIONS Kraft Foods BROOKE WYNN SENIOR DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY Smithfield Foods JOE ZEMBAS DIRECTOR, ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL SERVICES The J.M. Smucker Company

ahand@pmmimediagroup.com 6

PROFOOD WORLD

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| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

3/31/22 4:38 PM

RIBBON/PADDLE/PLOW BLENDERS HANDLE POWDERS TO PASTES

VEE-CONE BLENDERS SANITIZE ULTRA-FAST, THOROUGHLY

FLUIDIZED BED MIXERS BLEND ULTRA-FAST, GENTLY

MUNSON® Ribbon, Paddle and Plow Blenders force agitators through stationary materials, imparting shear needed to reduce agglomerates and blend pastes and slurries. Choose from basic, low cost industrial units to state-of-the-art designs of 304/316 stainless with heating/cooling jackets, liquid spray additions, high-speed choppers/ intensifiers, and finishes to USDA Dairy and other standards. Extreme vessel rigidity allows tight agitatorto-vessel wall tolerances, resulting in a minimum “heel” of residual following discharge. Heavy- and extra-heavy-duty batch and continuous models in capacities from 1 to 1,150 cu ft (.03 to 32 m3).

MUNSON® Vee-Cone Blenders feature smooth internal surfaces free of baffles, shafts and bearings, allowing unobstructed material flow, plus complete discharge through a gate valve for rapid cleaning or sanitizing of the easy-access interior. Uniform blends are typically achieved in 5 to 15 minutes with equal efficiency at fill volumes from 100% to 25% of capacity. Ideal for dry and granular materials, these blenders provide a tumbling action that is gentler than machines that force agitators through stationary material. Options include spray bars for liquid additions, Clean-In-Place (CIP) systems, abrasion-resistant steel construction, ASME-coded jackets and weigh batching accessories.

Unlike Ribbon and Paddle Blenders with a single agitator shaft, MUNSON® Fluidized Bed Mixers feature two shafts with paddles that counter-rotate at higher speeds to fluidize material, achieving homogeneous blends in 10 seconds to 2 minutes. Low shear forces minimize friction with little or no degradation and insignificant heat generation of <0.6°F (1°C). Drop-bottom gates provide rapid discharge with no segregation and minimal residual.

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FOLLOW US

4/1/22 10:04 AM

NEWS

IN THE

Poland’s Meat Industry Reaches Out to the World AARON HAND | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

O

N A TRIP sponsored by the Union of Producers and Employers of Meat Industry (UPEMI), a group of U.S. and Canadian food industry journalists visited Poland to learn about the quality of European meats.

Through a series of interviews with trade and government officials, meat processors, chefs, and restaurateurs, we learned not only of the desire to reach North American markets with high-quality beef, pork, and chicken, but also the efforts being taken to ready products for export around the world.

Poland is the No. 1 poultry producer in Europe, but it has had difficulty getting the go-ahead to export poultry to the U.S. since 2014. That hurdle was finally overcome in late October, according to Polish delegates we met with in November. “The U.S. veterinary services recognizing the equivalence of the Polish supervision system for poultry meat production with the American system was a huge success,” says Katarzyna Piskorz, deputy chief veterinarian for Poland, also pointing out some superior aspects of Polish poultry. “In the U.S., they’re allowed to add certain disinfectants when processing. That’s not allowed in the EU. We would be ecological 100%.”

Beef and pork But it was primarily beef and pork that the visit was focused on—touring a beef slaughterhouse and processing facility; a meat processing plant focused largely on pork; butcher stores; and several restaurants with renowned chefs serving up some of the best the country has to offer.

The EU exported more than $220 million of pork and close to $44 million of beef to the U.S. in 2020, according to the European Commission. The U.S. is Poland’s primary market for pork exports. However, beef from Poland is

Senate Confirms New FDA Chief Dr. Robert Califf has been chosen to lead the FDA again. He previously served as FDA commissioner in the last year of the Obama administration.

The agency did not have a permanent leader for 13 months.

USDA Committed to Enhancing American Food Supply Chain The USDA is making up to $215 million available in grants and other support to expand meat and poultry processing options, strengthen the food supply chain, and create jobs and economic opportunities in rural areas.

Nestlé’s New Research Institute Based in state-ofthe-art facilities in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Nestlé Institute of Agricultural Sciences will strengthen Nestlé’s agricultural science expertise to help it achieve net zero and transition to a regenerative food system.

Microsoft Selects Land O’Lakes/ Truterra CO2 Removal Project Truterra, Land O’Lakes’ sustainability business, will work with its agricultural retailer network and farmer-customers to generate carbon assets for sale to Microsoft.

U.S. Avian Influenza Numbers Continue to Grow

Befsztyk is a well-known butcher shop in Poland. Opting for quality over price, the shop sells meats from Poland and around the world.

As of March 8, the virus had been identified in flocks in 12 states, stoking fears of an outbreak comparable to that of 2015, which prompted the depopulation of 43 million chickens and 7.4 million turkeys.

www.profoodworld.com

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| April 2022 | PROFOOD WORLD

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3/31/22 3:46 PM

IN THE NEWS

s

port, and other best practices,” he notes.

It’s an expensive effort that will take a number of years, he says. For farmers, the most direct route is to use solar panels to capture the renewable energy. Some might aim for bio-gas plants, using manure as fuel. “There are basic practices that will result in farmers getting to carbon-free.”

Katarzyna Piskorz, Poland’s deputy chief veterinarian, and Ryszard Bartosik, deputy minister of agriculture and rural development, meet with U.S. and Canadian food journalists.

The processing plants

s

With the help of an interpreter, Waldemar Podniesiński (right), Mokobody’s president, explains the challenges that beef producers face in Poland.

not currently exported to the U.S. That is a situation that the country aims to change with its Meat With European Quality campaign.

The recent win for Poland’s poultry industry in the U.S. “gives hope for the aforementioned prompt initiation of beef exports to the United States, as well as expansion in the supply of a catalogue of pork products,” Piskorz notes. “For beef, we’re hoping it won’t take so long as eight years.”

Pricing its meat lower than some other parts of Europe while also still adhering to European safety regulations puts Poland in a competitive position in other markets. “The significant potential of Polish agriculture consists of well-developed plant and animal production, the highest standards of quality and food safety, which go hand in hand with competitive prices,” says Ryszard Bartosik, deputy minister of agriculture and rural development.

Sustainabiilty Wieslaw Różański, president of UPEMI, attributes the quality of European meats to animal genetics, wellbeing, transport, and slaughter. He also discusses the efforts being made in Poland toward more sustainable practices within the meat industry.

“Beginning next year, Poland will require farmers to certify their operations as zero emission,” he says.

Poland’s meat producing industry maintains sustainability guidelines through the whole production chain, Różański says. “There has been an industry move to more renewable energy sources, biodegradable packaging, lower-emission trans10

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As part of our tour, we visited two meat processing plants. The first, Zakłady Mięsne Mokobody, was originally established in 1989 and then completely rebuilt and modernized in 2004 and established as an LLC, with its current name, in 2008.

“There was a very big investment made in our operation just before Poland joined the European Union in 2004,” says Waldemar Podniesiński, Mokobody’s president. “Our plant was rebuilt from the ground up over a seven-month period. We entered production in 2004 as a fully upgraded European Union slaughterhouse facility.”

Podniesiński made the decision to upgrade to EU requirements rather than become obsolete— likening the decision to keeping a knife sharp in the slaughterhouse rather than moving forward with a dull knife. “If we didn’t upgrade our technology then, we would not be here today because the plant would simply be obsolete now,” he says.

Mokobody has been focused solely on beef since 2005, when it phased out pork slaughter for economic reasons. “It was not profitable, so we decided to focus on beef,” Podniesiński says.

That beef, he insists, is a higher-quality beef.

He points to the way the animals are fed and the way they are cared for. Dismissing questions about the use of growth hormones or antibiotics, he says, “Here in Poland, we use natural feed like straw, maize, things like that. Everything is done for the animals to make them comfortable.”

Cultivating exports Within the beef market, Mokobody has put a strong emphasis on its certification within Islamic markets for Halal beef, enabling it to sell its product to several markets outside of Poland. “We’re certified to export to Dubai, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, and others. So this is our main focus right now,” Podniesiński says.

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

3/31/22 3:49 PM

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IN THE NEWS

Polish meat producers are still learning how to sell their product in Poland more effectively, says Mościbrody’s Irena Hejnia.

Because of that, Polish meat producers are still learning how to sell their products more effectively in Poland, according to Hejnia. “Our niche now is to focus on the superior quality of our meat and take our products to market on that high level to differentiate from others,” she says.

Workforce concerns “The price we get for Halal meat is key for us. In 2010, we were the first Polish brand that entered the Turkish market with our Halal meat.”

Certified by the Islamic Faith Association, Mokobody’s plant undergoes an audit every year. It’s an expense certification to maintain, Podniesiński says, noting the special training required to perform Halal slaughter. “Our plant has to have at least two full-time employees of Islamic faith so they can work different shifts. This is why you see employees here from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan,” he says.

As with many products around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused supply problems for cattle as well. “The number of cattle in Poland is steadily decreasing, so all the plants and slaughterhouses have the same problems,” he says. “In Poland, we’re now in a situation where if you want to buy some livestock, you have to make decisions quickly. If you wait, they will disappear immediately because the competition will snatch the animals.”

Though our tour was focused largely on the pork processing side of the business, Zakład Mięsny Mościbrody, founded in 1996, produces a range of smoked products from turkey, beef, and pork, and slaughters beef and pork. The producer exports to Germany, France, and Italy. It is also starting partnerships in Denmark.

“For the past four years, I’ve been working with Japan to export smoked turkey drumsticks and other smoked products into that country,” notes Irena Hejnia, managing director of Mościbrody.

“Because we process and package meat products, we can export to other countries that we cannot export to otherwise. For example, we cannot export raw meat to Japan, but we can export processed products there.”

There was a time, 10 to 15 years ago, that Poland looked to Russia as its key export market. “Russia eventually closed their borders to us, and then they started to learn how to produce those products that we used to export to them,” Hejnia says.

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No matter where we are around the world, we seem to be hearing the same workforce woes, with every quarter having difficulty finding the workers they need to grow their operations—or even keep them running at capacity. This is no different at the meat processing plants in Poland.

At Mokobody, the lack of labor causes problems throughout the farming and slaughter business, says Podniesiński, who is seeing a generational shift in the industry. “There aren’t really farmers anymore like my parents were, and their readiness for the difficult toil of farming.”

He is taking extra measures to secure workers, particularly for the Halal processing. “We have an employee from Uzbekistan. On Friday, I took the documents of four of his friends to the workrelated authorities to get them registered so they could work here,” he says. “Our company is currently building housing for our workers from other countries. I have to have those kinds of attractions.

Otherwise, I would have nobody working here.”

Mościbrody gets only about half of its workers from inside Poland, with others coming from the Ukraine and Georgia, for example, Hejnia says.

“The staffing problem for me is that workers from outside Poland are coming here for a short time, and they’re learning a new process. It takes about a month for them to learn their jobs, and by the third month, they’re going back to their countries,” Hejnia says. “Some stay here for half a year, but it’s not possible to stay here longer because of their work permits.” (Note: This conversation took place before the Ukraine’s current war with Russia, during which more than 3.5 million people have so far fled the country, many into Poland.)

Hejnia sees labor as Mościbrody’s biggest issue, making it very difficult to find workers. “The ones we have learn how to work in meat processing.

When they leave, they take those skills to other countries like Germany,” she says.

The next stage for Poland is to ensure additional funding to promote high-quality products around the world, UPEMI’s Różański says, adding the need to better prepare students in vocational schools for the industry. “We’re equipping training rooms, buying the equipment to educate young people, to give them real information about animal production.”

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

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PACK EXPO East Returns, Bigger Than Ever

P

ACK EXPO EAST 2022 continued its strong run of record-breaking events, welcoming more than 6,600 attendees across 95,000 net sq ft of show floor, making it the largest PACK EXPO East since its inception, according to show producer PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

“PACK EXPO East continues to meet every benchmark as the premier regional packaging and processing event in the Northeast,” says Jim Pittas, president and CEO of PMMI. “Exhibitors and attendees really enjoy the opportunity for extended conversations that serve as the foundation for real, actionable business relationships.”

“What an energetic show. People were eager to see the latest solutions and discuss how they can benefit their business,” says Michael Garvey, CRM management and sales automation at Garvey, which has exhibited at every PACK EXPO East.

“You can tell people are happy to be back to inperson events, and we have been able to have meaningful conversations with entire teams looking to find solutions for upcoming projects.”

John Holmes, line integration sales manager at DTM Massman, has also exhibited at every PACK EXPO East and considers it as crucial to his company’s business as the more extensive PACK EXPO International (Oct. 23-26, 2022, McCormick Place, Chicago) and PACK EXPO Las Vegas (Sept. 11-13, 2023, Las Vegas Convention Center). “Show after show, PACK EXPO East brings in customers from up and down the East Coast who have projects they are ready to start or genuine curiosity on what options are available to them,” he says.

The opportunity to make valuable connections extended beyond the trade show floor. PACK EXPO East’s opening day wound down with a Taste of Philly reception, offering attendees and exhibitors the opportunity to continue show floor discussions over drinks and regional foods. Young professionals in packaging and processing connected during PMMI’s Young Professionals Networking Reception at SPIN Philadelphia. A highlight of the show’s second day came after show hours as well when 170 industry professionals gathered for the Packaging and Processing Women’s Leadership Network (PPWLN) networking event.

Throughout the show, PACK EXPO East exhibitors reiterated that the right people were at this show, ready to do business. Few exhibitors left Philadelphia as happy as Point Five Packaging,

which was able to complete a sale right on the show floor. And EAMVision sales manager Steve Polley believes PACK EXPO East 2022 was the best one yet. “EAMVision had more leads at this show and more all-around quality engagement with attendees than at PACK EXPO East two and even four years ago,” Polley says.

Attendees also enjoyed returning to PACK EXPO East, noting the convenient access from points up and down the Northeast corridor. Laura Kershaw, packaging engineer for Hungryroot, traveled from New York City in search of a printing and labeling solution that would ease the hand-labeling load for the online grocery delivery service.

Throughout the three days, accessible education on the show floor provided attendees and exhibitors alike with potential solutions, best practices, and industry breakthroughs on the Innovation Stage. The Forum was standing room only with free interactive sessions on the latest industry trends. Content from the Innovation Stage sessions will be available online via PACK EXPO Xpress (www.packexpoxpress.com) through April 29. Additionally, view contact information, product information, and more from the companies who exhibited at PACK EXPO East.

PMMI heads to Mexico City for the next event in the PACK EXPO portfolio, EXPO PACK México 2022 (June 14-17; Expo Santa Fe). For more information and to register, visit www.expopackmexico. com.mx. Registration is also officially open for PACK EXPO International’s return to Chicago, Oct. 23-26. For more information and to register, visit www.packexpointernational.com. www.profoodworld.com

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OPX INTEL EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STEPHEN M. PERRY, PH.D. | CO-FOUNDER + COACH, FSO INSTITUTE

How to Beat the ‘Great Resignation’ Focusing on recognition instead of resignation may help quell current manufacturing workforce challenges. Employers should focus on flexibility, skills development, meaningful work, work-life balance, and creating new workplace dynamics.

ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

©

EMPOWERMENT DESIRE

AUTHORITY

SKILLS

Meaningful Work

To Take Responsibility (self)

FUNCTIONAL (capabilities)

Team Contribution Recognition

To Hold Accountability (self and others)

Emotional Equity

CONNECTION

ENABLEMENT

To Make Decisions To Lead To Make a Difference

Technical Management Leadership Financial/ Business Communication

RESOURCES

FIT

AUTHORITY

Tools

Role

Processes

Interest

Inspirational Vision

Provisions

Culture

Information

Recruitment

Technical Support

Aptitiude

Customer Requirements

INTERPERSONAL (capabilities)

To Give Input & Challenge the Perceptiveness Cultural Norm Self-Awareness To Take Risks Empathy To Take Action Collaborative To Be Flexible Thinking

Team Orientation Attitude Assimilation

Strategic Plan State of Business Goals & Objectives Metrics/KPIs Visual Controls Standard Procedures Standard Work

Systematic Thinking Adaptability

MISSION/VISION/PURPOSE VALUES LEADERSHIP IMAGE COURTESY OF PMMI’S OPX LEADERSHIP NETWORK

The OpX Workforce Engagement Framework document is available for free download at www.opxleadershipnetwork.org/engagement/ download/workforce-engagement.

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I

RECENTLY READ an interesting “great resignation” post by Matt Fieldman, executive director of America Works, about workers who are voluntarily quitting their jobs in record numbers. Fieldman notes that the great resignation moniker focuses too much on employees only and conjures up unflattering, stereotypical images of the workers. But he suspects that there’s something far bigger and more transformative in play—a new, shared responsibility between employees and employers for creating a “new normal” workplace in manufacturing. He suggests an alternative moniker—the “great recognition”—which he maintains is better at capturing how both employees and employers are learning and evolving in a quest to address disruptive workplace challenges and reverse the upward trend in resignations, all in the hope of filling some of the nearly 900,000 open jobs in manufacturing today.

For workers in manufacturing, the great recognition equates to the desire for flexibility in work scheduling, job flexibility that develops multiple skills and capabilities, clearer career path opportunities and mobility, improved working conditions, meaningful work, and a redefinition of work-life balance, with greater emphasis on how they live their lives, especially with the need for more leisure time.

For employers in manufacturing, the focus of the great recognition is on employee engagement (how to empower, enable, and connect employees to their companies), greater attention to employee needs throughout the entire employee lifecycle, improving job quality and working conditions in a variety of ways, innovation, and creativity around new ways of thinking about workplace dynamics— and, of course, the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

A prevailing message in the great recognition is the heightened focus on and steadfast commitment to the cultural transformation—a true cultural shift—required for employers if they expect to be

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competititve in recruiting and retaining these “new normal” workers.

Employee engagement plays a key role in understanding the great recognition. According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2021 Report, there is a global engagement rate of 20 to 34% in the U.S. and Canada. The implication here is that most employees are either not engaged or are actively disengaged. As measured by lost productivity, high turnover, and high employee replacement costs, disengagement can be costly.

One of the key findings in this Gallup data is that the great recognition is less a pay issue and more a workplace issue. So, what can be done to improve employee engagement in the workplace? More importantly, what are food and beverage manufacturers doing about it now?

To answer these questions, FSO Institute turned to PMMI’s OpX Leadership Network Workforce Engagement Framework (see image on page 14), which outlines what manufacturers can do to improve employee engagement in the workplace.

From that, OpX deployed a Manufacturing Health Assessment Survey of Workforce Engagement for Food and Beverage Manufacturers to determine what they are doing about engagement. Preliminary findings from the CPG survey participants are highlighted below.

Empowerment To empower employees in the workplace, manufacturers can focus on giving them the authority to take responsibility, to hold others accountable, to make decisions, to take risks, to take action, to make a difference, to provide input, and to challenge cultural norms. Some key findings include:

• Taking risks—Respondents are evenly split regarding their companies’ encouragement of risk-taking to deliver on the business strategy. As other attributes of engagement are strengthened, risk-taking tends to become more acceptable since more accountability is pushed to individuals and teams.

• Taking action and making a difference— Respondents report relatively high levels of engagement regarding action and difference making—for doing whatever needs to be done to get the job done and for developing new ideas and executing action plans.

• Providing input and challenging cultural norms—Respondents get high marks for giving and receiving positive/negative feedback and for working to understand each other’s perspectives to ensure delivery of best solutions.

Enablement To enable employees in the workplace, manufacturers can focus on developing functional skills (management, leadership, technical) and interpersonal skills (self-awareness, collaborative thinking, systemic thinking, adaptability) and providing the resources required (tools, processes, information, customer requirements). Some key findings include: • Training and longer-term professional development—Respondents report that their companies are better at technical training, but far fewer provide a personal development plan over the long haul (think: career path) to meet the needs of the individual and the business.

• Tools, processes, and information— Respondents report reasonably good support from their companies regarding the tools and www.profoodworld.com

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OPX INTEL EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

processes to do their jobs, but note that the information they need is not always as easy to access as it should be.

• Customer requirements—Respondents are evenly split on the effectiveness of their companies in revealing how their performance links to customer requirements and satisfaction, leaving them less connected to the overall company performance.

ABOUT THE OPX INTEL SERIES OF ARTICLES PMMI’s OpX Leadership Network has produced more than 20 manufacturing

™

process-improvement documents for CPGs and OEMs. The FSO Institute has facilitated the adoption and implementation of these documents, especially for food and beverage manufacturers. This series of articles shows how CPGs are using OpX and FSO documents to improve their overall manufacturing health and collaboration with OEMs and other suppliers. Learn more at www.opxleadershipnetwork.org and www.fsoinstitute.com.

Connection To connect employees with the workplace, manufacturers can pay special attention to the fit (role, interest, attitude, aptitude, team orientation) of the employee to the state of the business (vision, strategy, goals, objectives) and the overall performance of the business (metrics, KPIs, standard procedures, standard work). Some key findings include: • Individual role and commitment to a culture of engagement—Many respondents report that their companies do a good job helping individuals understand how their role contributes to the bigger picture and are committed to a culture of engagement, but there’s room for improvement.

• Compelling vision—Respondents are ambivalent about the strength of their companies’ vision (compelling and easy to understand) in motivating them to contribute to something bigger than themselves.

• Sharing of goals/objectives and the link to company performance—Most respondents report that goals and objectives are not always clear, and even less clear is their link to both plant performance and overall company strategy and business needs.

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PACKAGING TECHNOLOGY MATT REYNOLDS |

EDITOR, PACKAGING WORLD

Multi-Component Package for DIY Berry Yogurt Parfaits With an existing 4-oz Chobani yogurt pack format as a starting point, berry parfait product collaborator Naturipe worked backward and reverse-engineered an optimized PET cup and closure that nests components and seals them into a single package system.

N

ATURIPE IS A FARMER-OWNED grower and marketer of premium berries that, for more than 100 years, has been producing fresh, frozen, and value-added berry products. Because Naturipe’s growers share with each other valuable resources, skills, labor, and knowledge, they improve themselves as farmers and, in turn, strengthen the local farming community.

This past summer, the company launched its new Berry Parfait line of on-the-go snack packs, featuring Chobani Yogurt, Naturipe fresh berries, and film-wrapped granola, all within two nested cups that are sealed by a PET film closure. Each of the constituent ingredients is kept separate and uncompromised in-pack until the consumer decides to combine them.

“We’ve been trying to do something like this; it has been on our wish list for a long time. But we really wanted to offer something that set itself apart from the products that are currently out there,” says Janis McIntosh, director of marketing innovation and sustainability at Naturipe. “One thing that slowed us down was that we were initially trying to utilize packaging formats that we already had. We kept asking ourselves, ‘Rather than reinventing the wheel, is there something already in our packaging landscape that we’re already using that we could repurpose for a parfait?’ Finally, we realized that this was going to have to be a whole new design.”

The decision to break from existing packaging freed decision-makers to seek exactly what they wanted rather than make do with leftovers. They wanted something nice and clean that would clearly demonstrate that Naturipe had partnered with Chobani—a brand that people recognize, trust, and like. They wanted a pack that would broadcast to

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PHOTO COURTESY OF NATURIPE s

A clear, lidded PET cup lets the two stars of the show shine through on a shelf: fresh berries and Chobani brand yogurt.

consumers that there would be high-quality yogurt, as well as fresh berries, in each parfait.

“We knew that we had a win-win with our partners at Chobani,” McIntosh says. “They’d never done anything like this either; a fresh produce project like this was unique for them.” But just because Naturipe had determined to start fresh with a new pack design didn’t mean that Chobani had to. “We wanted to do something unique and different, but we didn’t want them to have to start from scratch on their side. So, the easiest thing was to ask them, ‘What do you have that we can take advantage of for this important project?’”

Chobani was already producing a 4-oz traditional format polypropylene yogurt cup with a sealed foil closure that had originally been designed for airline foodservice situations. The 4-oz size would be workable as a starting point to build around. The Chobani pack was also in a prime position for important factors like calorie content and price point.

“Both Chobani and Naturipe are all about health, and we’re always innovating around healthy snacks that hit a certain level of calories and nutrients,” McIntosh says. “This 4-oz Chobani cup was perfect for us because we knew we were going to be pairing it with granola and berries, both of which are bringing some calories of their own to the table.”

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The Chobani cup’s closure circumference is the same as its more familiar and larger 5.3-oz cups, allowing them to be heat sealed on existing packaging equipment. The only change for the targeted cups is their depth. That got the Naturipe innovation team thinking. If the short Chobani cup were nested in a larger, deeper thermoformed cup, the enclosed yogurt pack would occupy the head space of the outer cup. But there would also be an open cavity underneath the cup that could contain berries. This outer cup, in which the finished Chobani cup would nest, would need to be molded with a shelf or flange around its upper circumference on which the inner cup’s closure neck could rest. When nested, it would rest above the empty cavity beneath it.

“We looked at what’s currently on the shelf in terms of height and realized, ‘Well, why don’t we just put our berries at the bottom of a slightly larger cup, and nest the Chobani cup above?’ Our biggest challenge was determining how much head space we would need in that cavity to accommodate berries that sometimes come in different sizes throughout the year.”

Building the perfect cup The R&D process was an iterative one; nine different size and shape tests into the project, McIntosh and her team narrowed in on one that they felt would accommodate all the various growing regions’ berry sizes.

“We just didn’t know how the berries were going to sit,” McIntosh says. “The biggest consideration was to make sure the berries sit well and comfortably, so that was the driving force behind all those iterations. It was all about protecting the berries.”

But the space beneath the yogurt cup wasn’t the only consideration. There also needed to be space above the yogurt that would carry a flow-wrapped pack of granola.

Not every granola supplier had the equipment to produce the mini-sized film packs Naturipe was looking for. The flow-wrapped granola pack needed for this project was a challenge. A high-barrier BOPP film material protects crunchy granola from moisture that could come from the berries in the pack or could result from temperature-based condensation in transit or retail display.

Yet another challenge that would affect the final pack format was a unique need shared by two specialty channels into which Naturipe intended to sell.

Beyond traditional retail requirements, both convenience store and airline customers—key target markets for these berry parfaits—required these packs to include a spoon to make them self-contained

and on-the-go friendly. Luckily, the wooden spoon form factor was thin enough that it would fit into the cup’s headspace, above the yogurt and below the granola pouch, before sealing.

With dimensions sorted, Naturipe opted for clear PET instead of the typical PP yogurt style cup. It’s a favorite material for the berry industry, plus its transparent nature allows consumers to get a good look at the farm fresh berries, PHOTO COURTESY OF NATURIPE which Naturipe would say are the star of the show. The visible berries are This exploded a big distinguishing factor in the parfait system view of the compared with pre-mixed fresh yogurt and berries.

Naturipe berry Also, the transparent PET allows for the immediate- parfait pack ly recognizable Chobani brand name—as printed on illustrates all of the existing Chobani pack’s label—to clearly show the constituent through on a retail shelf. packaging Geometrically, the inner Chobani cup is cylindrical, elements and how they nest but the outer PET cup uses squarer panels around its cylindrical yogurt cup contents. The closure shape on together. top of the PET cup is also more square-shaped than the circular yogurt closure within.

To take this idea from drawing board to reality, Naturipe worked closely with a thermoforming partner. The company was able to three-dimensionally model and validate how the cups and components would nest together, long before any expensive metal molds needed to be cut and, potentially, scrapped. Naturipe chose not to reveal any of its packaging material or equipment suppliers.

Automation on the packaging line While some upstream and downstream processes are automated, the assembly of the individual components together before the top seal remains a manual process. Since the package system was invented basically from whole cloth, there isn’t any standard, off-the-shelf equipment that could handle the task. But that might not always be the case.

Downstream case packing is also manual. Future equipment added to this area of the packing line, to automate the step marrying yogurt cup to outer PET cup, will need to be able to handle cold-room temperatures around 32°F. www.profoodworld.com

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| April 2022

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FOOD SAFETY JOYCE FASSL | SENIOR EXECUTIVE EDITOR

FDA Proposed Rule for Traceability—

Are You Prepared?

Perishable items and nut butters will be among the foods requiring increased traceability records under the FDA proposed ruling expected later this year. Automation, increased due diligence, and perhaps additional staffing are in the offing for affected food processors.

I

T MIGHT SEEM to the average consumer that product recalls are on the rise. But for the past few years, there has actually been a downturn in recalls, according to Eric Edmunds, food safety director with The Acheson Group (TAG).

“That [consumer perception] could have been caused by COVID or a lack of investigational activities happening on the FDA side in particular,” Edmunds explains. “But the science is improving, and the ability to detect and tie illnesses to actual causes is definitely getting better.”

The food industry, in general, is doing a better job of controlling hazards, Edmunds says. Today’s scientific advancements, including whole genome sequencing, are able to identify the cause of many foodborne illness outbreaks, but mainstream news and social media have led to an increased awareness of food safety among consumers.

Social media has played a big role in recall awareness, notes Tiffany Donica, a continuous improvement coach at SafetyChain Software and former food quality director for some major manufacturers. “Before Snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook, you might have heard about a food safety incident in the news, if it was major. But now, at the

Critical Tracking Events and Key Data Elements for Romaine Lettuce

Grower KDEs*

Receiving KDEs*

Receiving KDEs*

First Receiver KDEs*

Receiving KDEs*

Shipping KDEs*

Shipping KDEs*

Shipping KDEs*

Receiving KDEs*

Shipping KDEs*

Receiving KDEs*

Transformation KDEs* *More information is available by clicking on each box on this web page: www.fda.gov/media/142291/download.

Shipping KDEs*

SOURCE: FDA

The FDA website has several examples of CTEs and KDEs for products, such as soft cheese, seafood, and fresh-cut romaine lettuce.

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drop of a hat, somebody can post something on one of those platforms,” she states. “It goes viral, and the whole world is in an uproar about something that we might have not heard about 10 years ago.”

While food manufacturing plants are already maintaining strict traceability records, traceability regulations for perishable foods and nut butters are expected to be announced later this year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). (For a list of the foods included under the proposed rule, see the chart on page 22.)

The proposed rule is covered under the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA) signed into law in 2011. “The underlying reason why Congress passed a law is there’s basically a slow response time to investigating certain outbreaks and foodborne illness events,” says Edmunds. “The idea was that by creating more records, especially for high-risk foods, it would facilitate quicker investigations and prevent illness overall. If the FDA’s able to find the problem quicker, they’re able to put out public notices faster, effectuate recalls, and prevent more people from getting sick.”

The proposed rule shows a proactive approach to food safety challenges, according to Pablo Coronel, director of food safety at CRB. “With the suppliers knowing that everything is going to be traced, they’re going to be careful to supply good ingredients,” he states. “It puts a lot more responsibility on the ingredient supplier and is a very big help in keeping the cold food supply safe.”

Enhancing traceability and recordkeeping is going to improve food safety, Donica says. “Now, is it going to require a lot more diligence? Absolutely. And it could also cost facilities a little bit more in capital,” she states. “It’s going to require a lot more diligence in the food industry, especially in regulatory, food safety, and quality initiatives.”

Tech-enabled traceability is preferred, but not required While some larger processors already have software and staff in place to adhere to the proposed rule, many plants are still using Excel spreadsheets or paper documentation for traceability. While these methods are still acceptable to the FDA, processors affected by the proposed rule should be aware that all traceability records involved in a recall incident must be sent to the FDA within 24 hours.

“While the FDA would prefer food processors have tech-enabled traceability, the statute actually doesn’t require it,” states Edmunds. “If the FDA is investigating a foodborne illness, or acting on recall-level activities, you must share a sortable spreadsheet with all of the required information for your critical tracking events [CTEs].”

For those companies still documenting traceability records on paper, Edmunds thinks an investment in automation is well worth the price. “From a business perspective, automation is going to save time in the long run,” he says. And he expects most companies to experience this kind of request at some point. “It’s not really an if, but when,” he adds.

Many mom-and-pop food operations currently do not have the knowledge to handle the additional requirements under the proposed traceability rule.

Donica says these operations will see added costs for which they might not have budgeted. Software like SafetyChain can aid them in implementing some benefits, but it does come with a price tag, she explains. “It’s almost like you have to have a person solely [dedicated] to ensure that the documentation from beginning to end is being captured appropriately, and that it’s being validated.”

Coronel says it is mostly medium-sized companies that will have to implement software solutions and documentation on every ingredient they receive. The challenge for them, he says, is how to do the proposed recordkeeping. “They’re going to have to implement traceability systems,” he says. www.profoodworld.com

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FOOD SAFETY

FDA Proposed Rule: Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods Foods

Description

Cheeses, other than hard cheeses

Includes all cheeses made with either pasteurized or unpasteurized milk, other than hard cheeses. Includes soft ripened/ semi-soft cheeses (e.g., brie, camembert, feta, mozzarella, taleggio, blue, brick, fontina, monterey jack, and muenster) and soft unripened/fresh soft cheeses (e.g., cottage, chevre/goat, cream, mascarpone, ricotta, queso blanco, queso fresco, queso de crema, and queso de puna).

Shell eggs

Shell egg means the egg of the domesticated chicken

Nut butter

Includes all types of tree nut and peanut butters; does not include soy or seed butters

Cucumbers (fresh)

Includes all varieties of cucumbers

Herbs (fresh)

Includes all types of herbs, such as parsley, cilantro, basil, etc.

Leafy greens (fresh), including fresh-cut leafy greens

Includes all types of leafy greens, such as lettuce, (e.g., iceberg, leaf and Romaine lettuces), kale, chicory, watercress, chard, arugula, spinach, pak choi, sorrel, endive, etc.

Melons (fresh)

Includes all types of melons, such as cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, etc.

Peppers (fresh)

Includes all varieties of peppers

Sprouts (fresh)

Includes all varieties of sprouts

Tomatoes (fresh)

Includes all varieties of tomatoes

Tropical tree fruits (fresh)

Includes all types of tropical tree fruit, such as mango, papaya, mamey, guava, lychee, jackfruit, starfruit, etc.

Fruits and Vegetables (fresh-cut)

Includes all types of fresh-cut fruits and vegetables

Finfish, including smoked finfish

Includes all finfish species, such as cod, haddock, Alaska pollock, tuna, mahi mahi, mackerel, grouper, barracuda, salmon, etc.; except does not include siluriformes fish, such as catfish1

Crustaceans

Includes all crustacean species, such as shrimp, crab, lobster, crayfish, etc.

Mollusks, bivalves

Includes all species of bivalve mollusks, such as oysters, clams, mussels, etc.; does not include scallop adductor muscle.

Ready-to-eat deli salads

Includes all types of ready-to-eat deli salads, such as egg salad, potato salad, pasta salad, seafood salad, etc.; does not include meat salads

SOURCE: FDA 1 Data for catfish were excluded from the Risk-Ranking Model because siluriformes fish (such as catfish) are primarily regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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“And at the beginning, they’re going to need people who are dedicated to do this all the time, until they understand what’s going on.”

Smaller organizations and emerging brands should reach out to food safety and food security experts for help, Donica says. “There are a ton of people that you can get resources from, and [you should] attend webinars to make sure you are up to date on exactly what is required,” she states. “Work with your networking group, ask questions, and get best practices from other industries, especially if you’re very new into the industry, as well as if you’re very small and just don’t have that bandwidth of resources to pull from.”

The proposed rule is not about additional data gathering, Edmunds says. “It’s a compilation or transmission of data to the FDA that is going to cause a little more legwork, especially in a crisis scenario,” he explains.

Recently, TAG has been presenting free webinars on the topic in its FSMA Fridays webinar series in collaboration with SafetyChain and has begun to perform assessments for clients covering the proposed rule. TAG suggests that processors know which CTEs apply to them, ascertain if they already have the key data elements (KDEs) in their records, and know where these records are located. Edmunds says TAG’s work will ramp up when the rule is final. “You don’t want to invest too much when it’s not set in stone yet,” he states.

Due diligence is mandatory Even large companies could experience some headaches with the proposed rule, Donica says. In her experience, validation is extremely important, but is sometimes overlooked. She says processors should ask themselves questions such as: Is what we put in place functioning correctly? and Are we meeting all the guidelines?

In large facilities where many employees and departments are involved in traceability, due diligence is mandatory. Food processing facilities have a responsibility to ensure new guidelines get established, and that they are performed during the validation, Donica adds.

SafetyChain’s software platform handles traceability from the beginning to the end of the process. “Supplier compliance is one of the modules in our platform that enables you to better track and keep up with expiring documents, not keeping spreadsheets, and having everything in one spot where you can see what’s expiring, when it’s expiring, and to [store] documents from different suppliers,” she says.

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

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FOOD SAFETY

Records for Receivers Establish and maintain records containing and linking the traceability lot code to: The location identifier and location • description for the immediate previous source

Entry number assigned to food (if • imported)

The location identifier and location • description of where the food was received, and the date and time the food was received

The quantity and unit of measure • of the food

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The location identifier, location description, and point • of contact for the traceability lot code generator The reference records and numbers for documents • containing the information The name of the transporter who transported the • food to you

IMAGE COURTESY OF FSMA FRIDAYS WEBINAR SERIES

BY THE ACHESON GROUP (TAG), HOSTED BY SAFETYCHAIN

If food processors need to change suppliers, or there are changes in growing regions, they must update their traceability documentation quickly and accurately. With the industry’s continuing labor challenges, a lot of plants are struggling, she says.

If your suppliers are not up to standards, SafetyChain allows processors to give direct feedback to those suppliers and provide them with information on what they need to improve.

SafetyChain software can integrate with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, says Donica, but it will require some work on the food company’s IT side, as well as SafetyChain’s part.

“We do require an internal IT person to do the IT work on their side, because it is their ERP system.”

Lot codes, suppliers, and incoming ingredients require attention One area that might cause some confusion for affected processors is lot codes. “There’s a new legal definition of a traceability lot code,” says Edmunds.

Processors must know how traceability lot codes interact with the existing lot codes they are receiving and producing. “Is it going to create a new data element, or will you be able to transfer your existing lot coding system into the legal definition of the traceability lot code?” Edmunds asks.

The FDA’s website provides an overall outline, 24

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with frequently asked questions, on what is on the proposed food traceability list and how lot codes come into play. For example, the site has farm-tofork sample graphics showing where CTEs and KDEs would apply at each step along the supply chain.

While Edmunds believes audits won’t change much, bringing on new suppliers is an area to watch. He suggests establishing upfront documentation procedures for the information you need and how the new supplier is going to send it to you.

Coronel predicts FDA inspectors will find audits challenging until they understand how the new system works. He says they will need to understand how ERP works with traceability. He also believes audits will likely take more time.

Over the years, food safety consultant Paul Cordes has found traceability mistakes in his work with processors. “If I’m using salt that comes in with a tag on it from the manufacturer, that might be the Julian date when it was produced. You don’t necessarily use that,” he says, because the supplier might have assigned its own internal codes. Cordes also says processors should be careful with the extra traceability documentation if they are producing variety packs or prepared meals with different types of foods, such as a salad kit.

When bringing on new suppliers, if you have multiple ingredients that are coming in, you keep individual receiving records for each of them, says Edmunds. “But if you’re transforming or creating, [using ingredients] coming from multiple traceability lot codes, and you have multiple ingredients that are already on the list and creating something else, there are going to be some growing pains in that area, such as finding out exactly how to transfer that information through your production process.”

Coronel has seen companies that can’t get certain products, so they replace them. “A few companies have called me and said, ‘Is it OK if we substitute this for this for food safety?’ And that goes back to having some flexibility,” he says. “But I think, for traceability, it can be a nightmare because everything will change. But if those ingredients or those intermediate products have the electronic token and have been traced back, then it shouldn’t be that much more difficult.”

The key for affected processors right now is to identify whether they’re holding or processing something on the food traceability list. “Food processors must look at their supply chain to see which CTE applies to them, and they’ll need to start immediate discourse with their suppliers to determine if they already have the pertinent information,” says Edmunds.

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

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FOOD SAFETY

It is important to note that if food processors apply a kill step, the requirements do not apply to their subsequent shipping. If a processor receives a food that has been subject to a kill step, the requirements also do not apply to its receipt or subsequent transformation and/or shipping of food.

Making traceability more effective Co-packers or co-manufacturers also need to increase their awareness of traceability. They must have all the documents and be able to trace back any components of the food they are processing, says Cordes. “It’s their responsibility. They’re selling it as a final product. It is going to be different for variety packs, co-packing, or co-manufacturing of someone else’s goods,” he says. “Sometimes, you’re

not the holder of all the information, but you’re going to have to be now.”

Cordes says the FDA is trying to make the system more effective. “For some businesses, I think it’s going to be a little trickier than [for] others because it will cost them money in the end,” he says. “You have to track what goes into a product and be able to retain that information in the event that there is an issue.” It just means the FDA has a little bit more power to do things than what they have in the past, Cordes concludes.

The Acheson Group www.achesongroup.com

Food Safety Consultant Paul Cordes pcordesnm@gmail.com

CRB www.crbgroup.com

SafetyChain www.safetychain.com

FDA’s Recent Work on Prevention and Outbreak Response

A

CCORDING TO FDA STATISTICS from December 2021, foodborne pathogens are estimated to sicken one in six Americans each year, resulting in an estimated 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths. The agency says foodborne outbreaks require multidisciplinary efforts and, often, multijurisdictional coordination.

The FDA’s Foodborne Outbreak Response Improvement Plan (FORIP), introduced in 2020 as part the agency’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint, is an operation the agency is undertaking to improve the speed, effectiveness, coordination, and communication of outbreak investigations.

FORIP focuses on multistate outbreaks that require significant engagement coordinated by the FDA’s CORE Network. This plan is intended to complement two of the blueprint’s core elements: “Tech-enabled Traceability” and “Smarter Tools and Approaches for Prevention and Outbreak Response.”

Last summer, the FDA launched its Low- or No-cost Tech-enabled Traceability Challenge as part of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. The act asks companies to invest in innovation through R&D to improve U.S. competitiveness. The goal was to encourage stakeholders—from technology providers to public health advocates and innovators—to develop traceability hardware, software, or data analytics platforms that are low or of no cost to end users.

Out of 90 submissions from countries around the world, the FDA announced 12 winners from the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand. Some commonalities between winners include

To learn more about the winners of the FDA’s Low- or No-cost Tech-enabled Traceability Challenge, visit pfwgo.to/FDAChallenge.

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alignment with GS1 standards, multilingual options, and label generation. The following are some of the winners.

Atma.io, Avery Dennison’s connected product cloud—a platform for creating, managing, and assigning digital identities for individual items—is one of the components that provides item-level traceability to each participant in the food supply chain, from source to store and from farm to fork, using Avery Dennison systems and proprietary blockchain technology through Mastercard Provenance. Each item-level event is tracked in atma.io and subsequently written to Mastercard Provenance, allowing producers to automatically feed in product attribute information for each SKU—for example, weight, price, and shelf life.

Mojix uses industry standards to link traceability events

for each individual item and/or lot throughout the food supply chain to enable a low-cost, collaborative open data network. Each item has a universal ID, and when an item is separated into parts, all key data elements (KDEs) and critical tracking events (CTEs) remain associated with the original ID. Distribution centers, processors, and wholesalers can attach information to an item through a digital link. The Mojix network synchronizes data from multiple sources and acts as a global repository.

Rfider from Rfider Ltd is software-as-a-service that simplifies capturing, securing, and sharing critical event data along supply chains, all the way to consumers. This system includes a mobile application with an intuitive interface for data collection, a platform for data management, and a data sharing system for easier sharing capabilities. The mobile app is further designed to present users with the tasks that are relevant for a product at any given step in the supply chain.

ProFood World Contributing Editor Melissa Griffen contributed to this article.

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

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Moving Maintenance From Preventive to Predictive The technology is available to provide the kind of maintenance know-how that will keep operations humming along. But the average plant will need to overcome some hurdles to realize the benefits.

Predictive maintenance uses data from sensors to detect problems well before machines go down, making it possible to schedule repairs at the best possible time.

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MAINTENANCE TECHNICIAN walks the plant floor of a pet snack manufacturing operation as nearby machines whine and rumble. He stops in front of one machine, donning his augmented reality (AR) glasses to view diagnostics for the machine, to find that a bearing on the equipment will fail soon, according to vibrational analysis. On his glasses appear the storage location of a replacement part as well as instructions for how to complete the needed repair.

This is where plant maintenance is headed sometime in the next 10 years, expects Joe Zembas, plant engineering manager at food and beverage manufacturer J.M. Smucker. “You are given the information to properly shutdown, lock out, and replace the part like a video you’re an active part

in. You return the machine to operation,” he says.

“You’re capable of doing this without years of training as a mechanic.”

The scenario today is quite different, yet the technologies needed to make this future plant maintenance a reality are already in place or being actively rolled out. The list includes Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, analytics based on machine learning, digital twinning for simulations and evaluations, and AR and virtual reality (VR) for training and instructional how-to.

But even deciding where to start this technology transformation at an older plant can be difficult.

And older equipment might not be able to support this new form of plant maintenance. Cost is also always a consideration.

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

3/31/22 8:14 AM

TECH TODAY PLANT MAINTENANCE

s

HANK HOGAN | CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Augmented reality can provide instructions on how to fix machines, including what components are failing, where to find replacement parts, and how to install them.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

Preventive to predictive Today, it’s typical for manufacturers to practice preventive maintenance, according to Hans Van der Aa, president of SupportPro, the aftermarket service arm for all Duravant equipment. Preventive maintenance replaces parts and components on a regular schedule, based either on the calendar or usage. It’s a step up from a reactive approach, where maintenance happens after machines fail. Preventive maintenance eliminates roughly 80% of all unplanned downtime, according to Van der Aa. However, a preventive approach means that manufacturers are swapping out parts while they still have some operating life left in them, thereby driving up component cost. It also causes a drop in production throughput because machines must go offline for maintenance at what might not be the optimal times.

The next step up from preventive maintenance is predictive maintenance—something that only larger companies are doing today, Van der Aa says.

An example of preventive maintenance would be to monitor a motor for vibration or current draw. A change in normal operating conditions could indicate that a bearing is wearing out or about to fail in some other way. With this detected well in advance of potential problems, the plant could schedule maintenance for a time with the least impact on operations

while getting the most out of the equipment.

“That is what everybody is looking for,” Van der Aa says. “It can be done, but it’s not as straightforward as some people had hoped for because in the end you need to know the equipment well enough.”

IoT sensors that collect data on vibration, temperature, heat, current draw, and more can provide the raw information needed for such an understanding of plant machinery. Early vibrational analysis consisted of a technician walking around on a schedule, collecting data from a few selected spots on some machines, recalls Smucker’s Zembas.

Today, mounted IoT sensors can continuously monitor parameters like temperature and vibration. If connected to a plant network, those sensors can provide a constant reading on machine health.

A recent report from Market Data Forecast predicts that the global industrial IoT market will grow from $300 billion in 2020 to $895 billion in 2026.

Analysts project manufacturing will expand the fastest at a 24.3% compound annual growth rate.

Falling prices and increasing performance of IoT technology are driving that growth, as well as a desire for data. Real-time monitoring can help boost overall equipment effectiveness. As a result, condition monitoring programs are becoming more common, notes John Davis, a business developwww.profoodworld.com

0422_TechToday.indd 29

| April 2022 | PROFOOD WORLD

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Rather than fixing machines as they fail, new capabilities will enable a more proactive approach.

ment associate and solutions engineer for system integrator Quantum Solutions.

“Predictive maintenance strategies can lengthen a machine’s lifespan by addressing issues before they develop into expensive failures, while reducing unnecessary maintenance,” he says. “They can increase reliability and reduce costs.”

Analysis and simulation An ability to detect patterns in this potentially huge amount of sensor data is critical. For example, data trends can show jagged peaks and valleys simply because of changing loads on the machine. A batch mixer, for instance, might see vibration spikes during the beginning or end of a run. Because of this, an engineer might set relatively large out-of-spec margins—which in turn could conflict with the ability to spot signs of trouble as early as possible.

Traditionally, the type of knowledge necessary to detect such signs resided with a maintenance technician—someone who might have been on the job for decades, comments Jonathan Darling, consumer packaged goods industrial automation market segment leader at Schneider Electric. That experience makes it possible for a tech to walk through a plant, listening to the sounds of the machinery or otherwise collecting information on operating conditions.

Like someone driving a familiar car, the tech would be able to tell from the sound and other clues when something is off and then take corrective action.

One issue with this method is that it takes time to acquire that experience. Another problem is that it can lead to a conservative approach—a tendency to swap parts out early and continue to do things the way they’ve always been done.

Machine learning offers an alternative. With this technology, software ingests large amounts of sensor data from both good and bad operation, which can be defined as making in- or out-of-spec product or by some other criteria. From this information, software builds models used during day-to-day manufacturing to find problems. In manufacturing and elsewhere, machine learning has proven very successful in finding these hidden clues.

Machine learning, though, requires data—the more the better. The data must be from times when the machinery is working as desired and also at times when it is not. In a manufacturing plant that is 30

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PHOTO COURTESY OF SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

performing well, it might be hard to come up with out-of-spec examples, making it take longer to collect the needed data.

The money must be spent upfront to put in all the sensors necessary to gather the data. “There’s a whole conversation around cost, with investing into adding those sensors or monitors to those pieces of equipment in the facility,” Darling notes. “But what is the cost of a piece of equipment going down?”

The stoppage figure for a large CPG operation can be in the tens of thousands of dollars per hour, he points out.

Sometimes there are follow-on indirect costs as well. A chicken processing line, for example, might have only a limited amount of time that product can be left hanging on hooks because of health concerns or regulatory requirements, Van der Aa comments. A machinery breakdown that lasts long enough can lead to waste with raw product being scrapped and discarded.

Besides machine learning, another technology that can make use of IoT sensor data is a digital twin. This is a software replica of a physical system that responds to input changes in ways that mimic what happens in the real world. A digital twin makes it possible to get an idea of what will happen without it actually having to happen. Maintenance staff can simulate what variations in input feed rate, for example, would do to a machine’s output.

This capability makes it easier to troubleshoot problems, potential or otherwise, and investigate

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solutions without taking systems out of production.

It also allows experimentation, such as what will occur if technicians adjust a system’s operational parameters. Being able to see such effects could lead to a benefit beyond maintenance.

Someone who has decades of experience might be skilled at keeping equipment up and running, Darling notes, but that might not be the optimal operating point. A digital twin offers a way to find the operating conditions that lead to the best possible outcomes.

Overcoming a skills shortage A final area where technology advances promise to change maintenance for the better is AR and VR. Both present images to a user’s eyes, with these being either completely digital in origin in the case of VR or digital information overlaid on a real-world image for AR. Oculus, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Sony, and

“At Gericke, we’ve been paying attention to innovation in augmented and virtual reality where all the equipment documentation and maintenance steps are in front of the operator visually at any time, for example.” others either have or will likely soon have products in this space. Most of these are aimed at consumers, but some are already being used in industrial settings.

These developments are attracting the attention of machine makers. “At Gericke, we’ve been paying attention to innovation in augmented and virtual reality where all the equipment documentation and maintenance steps are in front of the operator visually at any time, for example,” says Rene Medina, executive vice president at Gericke USA. One reason to roll out this technology is the growing shortage of skilled maintenance personnel as well as the retirement of experienced workers.

Training replacements and getting them in-the-field experience takes time. AR could be used to fill in the voids in the current landscape by providing distilled information and guidance, Smucker’s Zembas says. “It’s an ability to address both the skills gap as well as the standard maintenance activities.”

AR technology need not involve glasses or goggles, which today can struggle in brightly lit settings and other environments. The display could be something as simple as using a tablet or phone to scan a QR code on equipment, thereby pulling up information on a machine.

VR can be particularly useful in training scenarios. It can allow trainees to practice a repair task 32

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on a simulation, for example, giving them valuable experience without having to take an actual machine out of service.

“We need to bring down the learning curve by making it easier to understand systems and what is going on,” Darling says.

Challenges Though IoT, analytics, digital twinning, AR/VR, and other technologies—even using 3D printing to overcome spare part supply chain issues—are promising when it comes to maintenance, there are still challenges to overcome. One is a perceived risk of change, Darling notes.

In greenfield plants, there is plenty of willingness to embrace the latest technologies. But legacy operations are a different story. Some food and beverage manufacturers have 20-year or even older control systems. And if the machines are running and producing goods at a profit, it could be difficult to overcome a reluctance to deploy new technology. It might even be the case that implementation requires ripping out the old, yet working, system entirely.

Paralysis in rolling out these innovative technologies can also arise when users are confronted with many different places to insert them. One approach to overcoming this hurdle is to identify which assets are critical and begin by implementing maintenance changes there, advises Quantum Solutions’ Davis.

In general, hardware is not an issue, Van der Aa contends. Sensors and other technologies are at the point that generating and collecting data is not a problem. Analysis is more difficult because it involves turning that data into actionable information. A typical first step, he says, might be to produce a dashboard with gauges to indicate plant health. Dashboards, though, do not say what to do once a problem happens or is predicted to happen.

Counterintuitively, the many technology options and choices can make achieving this goal of actionable feedback difficult, and so simplification can be helpful. For a maintenance service company like SupportPro, there is also the fact that customers are conditioned by office software, phones, and computers to expect continuous evolution and improvement. An answer for needs involves picking the right products and developing easier solutions, an approach SupportPro is exploring.

“At our company, we’re working on a standardized platform so we can make it a lot easier on our customers,” Van der Aa says.

Gericke www.gerickegroup.com

Schneider Electric www.se.com

Quantum Solutions www.qsicontrols.com

SupportPro www.supportpro.pro

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

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HERE’S RARELY AN ARGUMENT about the services a contract manufacturer/packager can offer when it comes to things like helping an emerging brand get started with manufacturing or helping an established brand launch a new product.

But co-mans/co-packs have also become the centerpiece for innovation for a lot of brands, according to Ron Puvak, executive director of the Contract Packaging Association (CPA). He notes a Fortune 100 brand that has about 35% of its production run through a co-man—and 85% of its innovation.

Vitaquest is a New Jersey-based custom contract manufacturer that produces, packages, and labels more than 4,000 nutraceutical and functional food formulations for more than 500 brands around the world. It’s an endeavor that requires continuous investment and continuous innovation. Vitaquest has a more than 40-year history as an early adopter of manufacturing technologies; it was one of the first companies to introduce a shelf-stable probiotic, and it also developed the first stick pack design and delivery.

For its powder filling lines, Vitaquest opts primarily for vacuum conveyors, and has worked for more than 20 years with Vac-U-Max technology for its powder conveying needs. Though Vitaquest still uses a few screw feeders, it’s been making a conscious effort to move away from that technology.

“Vacuum conveyors are the best choice for feeding filling lines for space savings, flexibility, reduced changeover time, simple operation, and minimal maintenance,” says Angel Simeon Jr., engineering manager for Vitaquest. “Screw feeders with hoppers require additional equipment to load the hoppers and more floor space. They are also heavier and take longer to set up and clean than vacuum conveyors.”

The mobile vacuum conveying system provides continuous supply of material from containers at floor level up and over to refill the stick packaging machine.

PHOTO COURTESY OF VAC-U-MAX

its new 200,000-sq-ft state-of-the-art facility, where it formulates and blends ingredients, processes them into a broad array of dosage forms, and packages them using a variety of packaging technologies, including pouches, stick packs, jars, and vials.

Mobile vacuum conveyors are complete conveying systems that contain all the same conveying system components that rigidly installed vacuum conveyors have—the vacuum producer, filter separator, controls, convey tubing, and a pick-up wand—but on a compact mobile conveyor frame.

“We have Vac-U-Max mobile conveyors, and we can use them anywhere with our equipment, like our pouching equipment, rotary fillers, and our stick pack lines—really, any of our powder filling lines,” Simeon says. www.profoodworld.com

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CASE STUDY VITAQUEST

Dry Processing SOLUTIONS

Though mobile vacuum conveyors require more floor space than a fixed unit would require, they have some key added benefits. One is that a single system is able to serve multiple processes—a trait that makes them particularly useful for contract manufacturers like Vitaquest, where product lines can be changed out often for various customers.

When one type of packaging machine finishes a production run, it might become idle for the near future. At that point, the mobile conveyor can be quickly cleaned and moved to another room for use with another type of product and packaging machine.

How it works The pick-up wand is standard with the mobile conveyor and is the primary device used by Vitaquest to pull material from plastic lined drums. However, bag dump stations, bulk bag unloaders, mixers, and blenders also work with the mobile conveyors.

Mobile conveyor systems raise the receiver to load auger fillers, mixers, reactors, and other processing and packaging equipment, and then lower the vacuum receiver back down to ground level for easy and safe cleaning and maintenance.

“The Vac-U-Max systems are simple to operate and maintain,” Simeon says. “They have no problem keeping up with our standard use rates of 1,000 lb/ hr for our stick pack and pouch filling lines and up to 3,000 lb/hr for our rotary fillers.”

The venturi-powered mobile conveyors at the facility conform to Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) sanitation regulations and require no tools or special mechanical skills to disassemble for product changeover. Venturi-powered units have no moving parts and do not generate heat within the packaging suite. Because there are no moving parts, maintenance in minimal.

“Maintenance is easy,” Simeon says. “It is just a matter of changing out the filter once in a while and the system is ready to go.”

Cleaning with mobile conveyors Cleaning is also much easier and safer, Simeon says.

“With mobile vacuum conveyors, there is significant cost savings on changeover and assembly,” he says.

Vitaquest uses segregated production suites and industry best cleaning practices throughout its manufacturing and packaging operations, performing comprehensive cleaning and sanitization of a production line between each product changeover. A rotating schedule of cleaning and production reduces time and maintains a constant flow of finished product. In this dynamic environment, five to 10 production lines undergo cleaning 36

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PHOTO COURTESY OF VAC-U-MAX

The vacuum receiver with integral mobile frame conveys material to a rotary filling machine at rates up to 3,500 lb/hr.

while the other lines remain operational.

Cleaning and maintenance are both always safer, more efficient, and effective when performed at ground level. This is especially critical in industries where stringent FDA and USDA sanitary regulations lead to frequent extended downtime for cleaning.

Most packaging and process machines need to be filled from the top, with a feed opening that could be as high as 10 ft above the ground. While that is easily achieved with a vacuum conveyor, if it’s permanently installed above the packaging machine, all maintenance (e.g., filter changing and cleaning for product changeover) must be performed at that elevated location, requiring the use of a ladder, scissor lift, or mezzanine.

Some machines, like rotary fillers, have opentop carousels, which can complicate the cleaning process if it takes place where a conveyor is rigidly installed above it. Any debris, tools, or loose parts that drop while cleaning can fall into the carousel.

With mobile units, rolling the conveyor away from other machinery and lowering the receiver allows simultaneous cleaning of both the conveyor and machine—instead of one after the other.

Vitaquest tends to go to Vac-U-Max whenever it’s adding equipment because it is the fastest turnkey equipment to feed both new and existing equipment, Simeon says. Vac-U-Max is also responsive to feedback. “I was here when we got the first mobile conveyor, and each time we purchase a new system, it is better than the last.”

Vac-U-Max www.vac-u-max.com

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3/31/22 12:33 PM

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Dry Processing SOLUTIONS

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DIGITAL SORTER FOR PETFOOD INTEGRATES WITH MATERIAL HANDLING SYSTEMS

The Key Technology digital sorter for petfood can be configured to sort a range of petfood types to find and remove foreign material (FM) and products with defects. Installed at the end of the line, the Veryx sorter helps ensure final product quality for kibble, chews, and treats, including dried, dehydrated, and freeze-dried products. When installed upstream near raw receiving, it inspects ingredients, such as frozen proteins and other ingredients for wet petfoods. By detecting the color, size, shape, and/or structural properties of every object, the sorter removes plastics, glass, paper, and other FM. The unit can be equipped with Pixel Fusion technology, which combines signals from multiple cameras and laser scanners at the image pixel level to identify the most difficult-to-detect FM and defects.

Key Technology | key.net

VOLUMETRIC FEEDER PROVIDES VERSATILE METERING AND HOPPERING CAPABILITIES

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SCREW FEEDER OFFERS HIGH DEGREE OF ACCURACY AT LOW FEED RATES The Vibra Screw feeder has an internal and external all-stainless-steel construction. Screw sizes range in size from ¼ to ¾ in., with feed rates as low as 0.0037 ft3/hr. The sanitary mini screw feeder can be configured as a volumetric feeder with accuracies of ±1 to 2% or as a gravimetric feeder with accuracies of 0.25 to 0.5%. The unit’s motor is available with a multi-layered, stainless-steel finish coating process or an all-stainless-steel construction.

Vibra Screw | vibrascrew.com

BULK BAG FILLING SYSTEM IMPROVES OPERATOR INTERACTION Capable of handling highly abrasive, fine, and dusty bulk raw materials, the NBE bulk material packaging system has a cantilevered bulk bag support framework with a bag-load capacity of 4,000 lb. Pneumatically actuated traversing rear bag loop hangers bring the rear bag loop hangers forward to within operator reach, while a traversing fill head enables access to the full radius of the fill.

Automation monitors the base-weigh scale system engineered into the framework and, based on preset weight specifications, adjusts upstream material supply to deliver controlled material infeed and bag filling. At preset intervals during the bag filling cycle, the densification base raises to isolate the pallet and bulk bag from the conveyor deck, and then initiates a vertical-motion vibratory action, causing air to be displaced.

Suitable for continuous and batching applications, the Acrison volumetric feeder incorporates two independently driven metering augers with a dual agitator flow-inducing mechanism. The Model BDF-1.5-2 bin discharger feeder eliminates changing the size of the metering auger whenever a wide feed range is required. In a batching mode, a larger metering auger feeds the majority of the material for the selected batch weight, while a smaller metering auger provides the final “dribble” amount. The feeder is available with a range of options, including quick-disconnect and sanitary construction to satisfy FDA and USDA codes.

Acrison | acrison.com

National Bulk Equipment nbe-inc.com

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Dry Processing SOLUTIONS

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NEW PRODUCTS

DISCHARGING SYSTEM PROMOTES FLOW OF MATERIALS THAT HAVE SOLIDIFIED The Flexicon bulk bag discharging system has a cantilevered I-beam with an electric hoist and trolley that lowers a bag-lifting frame to floor level for attachment of the bag to the bag strap holders, and then hoists and rolls the bag into the safety frame. The BulkOut BFC system includes an integral conditioner consisting of two hydraulically actuated rams with contoured conditioning plates that press opposing sides of the bulk bag.

A human-machine interface (HMI) housed in a NEMA 4 enclosure controls the stroke and number of ram actuations. For bulk bag discharging, the bag outlet spout is pulled through an iris valve mounted atop a dust hood over the hopper. Once the bag outlet is secured, and the iris valve is closed, the bag spout drawstrings can be untied, the access door is closed, and the valve is released. The hopper can be configured to connect to pneumatic or mechanical conveyors, or directly to downstream process equipment.

Flexicon | flexicon.com s

CONVEYING SYSTEM ROLLS TO TRANSPORTERS FOR CLEANER TRANSFERS The Gericke conveying system allows the company’s dense-phase pneumatic conveying technology to be rolled and connected to the discharge of a tanker, railcar, or other bulk transporter. Developed to automatically transfer powders and other bulk materials from receiving outside the plant to storage inside the plant, the Pulseline PTA-PL mobile pneumatic conveying system transfers material as a pulsed plug at low velocities to safeguard particle integrity and maintain the distribution of mixed products. Engineered for conveying abrasive, fragile, and sensitive materials, the mobile docking station and conveyor transfer vertically to reach silo hatches and horizontally up to 500 m or greater using pulsed secondary air injections along the pipe.

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Gericke USA | gerickegroup.com

PADDLE BLENDER MINIMIZES AMOUNT OF REMAINING MATERIAL IN THE VESSEL FOLLOWING DISCHARGE Able to de-agglomerate, blend, and condition dry bulk solids, pastes, emulsions, and slurries, the Munson paddle blender handles dry, moist, oily, paste-like, or otherwise difficult to blend free- and non-free-flowing materials in batches up to 25 cu ft. The Model HD-2.5-5-SS sanitary paddle blender features a heavy-gauge, stainless-steel U-shaped vessel that allows tolerances of 1/16 to ⅛ in. between the outer paddle edges and trough wall. Rotating paddles are forced through the batch, creating small zones where materials are repeatedly combined as they move slowly along the length of the vessel. Powered by a 10 hp (7.45 kW) motor with a helical gear reducer, the agitator is comprised of welded paddles projecting radially from the main shaft. Optional internal spray manifolds are available for liquid additions.

Munson Machinery | munsonmachinery.com s

CONVEYOR HANDLES FLOW-RESISTANT, SEMI-FREE FLOWING, AND OTHER CHALLENGING MATERIALS

The AFC flexible screw conveyor automatically transfers powders, pellets, and other dry bulk materials from a high-capacity hopper into mixers, reactors, tablet presses, or other equipment at various stages in the process. Available in five standard sizes plus custom sizes, the Spiralfeeder conveyor design increases ground clearance under the hopper for the capture of residual materials for reuse.

It comes with a choice of optional accessories, such as a material agitator or vibrator for enhanced material flow, and a mobility package that sets the entire conveying system on casters.

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VACUUM CONVEYING SYSTEM PROTECTS MATERIALS FROM CONTAMINATION

The Volkmann vacuum conveying system automatically transfers powders, pellets, and other bulk materials in a sealed, dust-tight design. Replacing bucket elevators, belt conveyors, and other open-air conveying systems, the VS pneumatic vacuum conveying system eliminates exposure to the plant environment, along with the potential for contamination due to humidity, pests, lubricants, and other risk factors. The sealed conveying system is explosion proof and ATEX certified for use in hazardous and non-regulated environments.

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Volkmann USA | volkmannusa.com

FILLING SYSTEM ECONOMICALLY PACKAGES VARIETY OF POWDERS Designed for sanitary powder processing, the Powder Process-Solutions system utilizes four fully automatic bulk bag fillers with an overhead trolley transfer. The bags are filled in a critical hygiene zone and palletized in a medium-hygiene zone.

The fully automatic bulk bag filling system features a suspension system for weighing bulk bags, a dust-tight fill head, and an inflatable bag seal ring that secures itself around each bag during filling to prevent product leakage. An impulse heat sealer is available as an option for integrated bag sealing.

Powder Process-Solutions | powder-solutions.com

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FEEDERS ENSURE HIGH-ACCURACY RESULTS

Coperion K-Tron tray feeders handle fragile inclusions, such as nuts, candy pieces, dried vegetables, and heat-sensitive chocolate chips, that may not be suitable in twin screw feeders. The K3 hygienic loss-in-weight vibratory feeders have a modular design that allows for custom tray designs for feeding into blenders or packaging lines. All the product contact parts are made of stainless-steel or FDA- and EC 1935/2004-compliant materials. Rates vary from 0.035 up to 300 ft3/hr.

Coperion K-Tron | coperion.com

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BOX CRUSHER ELIMINATES NEED FOR TOOLS TO BREAK APART FROZEN PRODUCT

The Layton box crusher has four crushing rollers, along with a tensioner that presses against boxes, to break apart crystalized product. Boxes with product enter the crusher on a pass-through conveyor and, after being crushed, are conveyed off the machine. The adjustable T-304 stainless-steel box crusher handles 9- to 14-in. wide boxes with a maximum height of 14 in. at an average feed rate of 35 ft/min. It includes 18-in. long perforated stainless-steel safety mesh guarding at the infeed and discharge, as well as a NEMA 4X control panel with an E-stop and emergency pull cable.

Layton Systems | laytonsystems.com

ANALYZERS MONITOR AND MANAGE ENERGY COSTS

FILLING/DEPOSITING SYSTEMS ACHIEVE HIGH DEGREE OF EFFICIENCY AND ACCURACY Engineered for rapid sanitation, Hinds-Bock filling/depositing machines have an ergonomic layout and hygienic design. The hermetically sealed servo motor-driven units allow operators to instantly recall automated fill/deposit parameters for each product or SKU; enable data acquisition, system tracking, and preventive maintenance scheduling; and offer discrete communication to control speed, fill/deposit amounts, acceleration, deceleration, and tuning speed within the fill/deposit cycle using integrated Ethernet communication.

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Hinds-Bock, a division of Middleby Food Processing Group hinds-bock.com

Used for two- and three-phase systems, as well as wildleg systems, Carlo Gavazzi energy analyzers measure most relevant instantaneous electrical variables, energy consumption, and harmonic distortion. The threephase analyzers feature voltage inputs up to 415 VL-L AC, current and voltage THD (up to 15th harmonic), and 100 ms serial data refresh rates. They offer energy measurements (imported/exported) of total kWh by phase, kVArh, and kVAh; and partial kWh, kVArh, and kVAh. The EM530 Class 0.5S (kWh) analyzer measures currents up to 10,000 A via 5-A current transformers, while the EM540 Class 1 (kWh) analyzer measures current up to 65 A via direct connection, eliminating the need for current transformers.

Carlo Gavazzi | gavazzionline.com

VALVE MANIFOLD GIVES USERS INSIGHTS INTO SYSTEM PERFORMANCE The Norgren valve manifold includes EtherNet/IP, Profinet, EtherCAT, and IO-Link to support connecting to new or existing systems. With 10- and 15-mm body sizes available, the VR Series valve manifold has a plug-in, subbase design to allow valves to be exchanged quickly with up to 24 solenoids and no plumbing interruptions, while supporting ongoing maintenance requirements. The valve features integrated silencers and fittings, horizontal and vertical orientation options, and an IP65-rated metal body for use in challenging environments.

Norgren | norgren.com www.profoodworld.com

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PLANT FLOOR NEW PRODUCTS

LOG END SLICER MAXIMIZES YIELD AND ELIMINATES REWORK The Grote log end slicer slices meat log butt ends to recover usable product. Programmable to discard caps or slice through entire log ends, it slices up to 90 strokes/min per lane. The auto-loading system feeds log ends to the slicer, where they are weighed down for consistent slicing by disposable band blades. The slicer has a modular, offline design, and is easily integrated into slicing operations.

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Grote | grotecompany.com

X-RAY SYSTEM COSTEFFECTIVELY INSPECTS INDIVIDUAL PACKS AND BARS

Designed for dual- or triple-lane production systems, Unifiller depositors work over vacuum form, fill, and tray sealing lines. The M Series depositors feature adjustable nozzles to meet any configuration, speeds up to 120 cycles/min, and a deposit range of 0.7 to 38 oz per nozzle.

Capable of handling particle sizes up to 1-in. soft cubes, the units deposit relatively viscous to liquid products, with or without chunks, such as batters, fruit fillings, sauces, delicate mousse fillings, salad dressing, soups, and deli salads. A servo version, with a PLC-controlled machine capable of multiple deposits, recipe storage, and conveyor integration, is available.

The Mettler-Toledo Safeline X-ray inspection system detects contaminants in small, individual-packaged confectionery, snack and cereal bars, and small bakery products immediately after flow-wrapping or pack sealing. The vertical X34C X-ray inspection system has a 700-mm long footprint, including the integrated reject. Capable of operating at 120 m/min, the system keeps product inspection aligned with many high-speed flow-wrapping machines and pack sealers. The optimized focal distance of the 0.4-mm diode detector and 100-W power generator increases the probability of detecting small contaminants and helps reduce the false reject rate.

Mettler-Toledo Product Inspection mt.com/pi

DEPOSITORS OFFER INDIVIDUAL PORTIONING FROM EACH PRODUCT CYLINDER

Unifiller | unifiller.com

X-RAY SYSTEMS OPTIMIZE PRODUCTS AND PROCESSES TO INCREASE PROFITABILITY Developed for the inspection of packaged products and bulk materials, Sesotec X-ray systems detect foreign body contaminants, such as metal, glass, ceramic, stones, bone fragments, and PVC, as well as product defects. High speeds and multi-lane capabilities make it possible for the Raycon X-ray systems to perform real-time inspection for as many as 300 products/min on up to four parallel lines.

They feature an open, modular design to allow toolless access to the conveyor area.

Sesotec sesotec.com

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COOKER ENABLES GREATER RECIPE CONTROL

The Hydro-Thermal cooker provides shear and pressure control. A direct steam injection cooker, the fully CIP-able Hydron hydroheater is designed for process flexibility and stability. The 3A-certified sanitary cooker is typically used with thick mashes and sauces.

Hydro-Thermal | hydro-thermal.com

DOUBLE-SEAT VALVE IMPROVES SAFETY FOR HYGIENIC PRODUCTION The GEA double-seat valve has a cavity chamber fitted with a vacuum self-drainage system, balancers on both valve disks that make the closed valve resistant to water hammers up to 50 bar in the upper and lower pipelines, and an integrated balancer cleaning device that ensures the balancer is completely flushed from the outside during seat lifting at the same time cleaning in place is achieved.

The control top of the mix-proof Varivent Type MX valve allows an operator to monitor the switching position of the valve at any time and be fully aware of the valve functions.

IS YOUR PROCESS HURTING PROFITS? Full custom solutions that are designed with your operational processes in mind.

The technology and experience to increase efficiency and profits.

GEA | gea.com

EXPANSION VALVE ENHANCES HEAT PUMP AND COOLING EFFICIENCY The Danfoss expansion valve for heat pumps, close controls, and process chillers is compatible with low-GWP refrigerants, including R454B and R32. Available in four sizes from 12 to 40 hp (62 to 114 kW), the ETS 8M series electric expansion valve offers a low opening degree (DO) and stable control in normal and reverse flows. It is compatible with existing 12-V drivers.

Material Weighing/Batching Process Control/Automation VISIT US AT

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Danfoss | danfoss.com

STERLING SYSTEMS AND CONTROLS, INC. AUTOMATION, BATCHING & WEIGHING SPECIALISTS www.profoodworld.com

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815-625-0852 • sci@sterlingcontrols.com • sterlingcontrols.com

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CONVEYOR SYSTEM IS CUED BY METAL DETECTOR FOR OPTIMAL SAFETY The Multi-Conveyor conveyor system transports two lanes of flexible packaged product that discharges from a dual-lane checkweigher through an incorporated metal detection system. When the reject-faultalarm system senses metal on either of the two simultaneously running lanes of thermoformed food product, the pneumatically actuated discharge end of the retractable, straight-running system extends or retracts, allowing both lanes of product to be rejected or to continue concurrently. The conveyor is fully welded, ground, and polished for the sanitary requirements of meat and cheese applications.

Multi-Conveyor | multi-conveyor.com

OVERLOAD SAFETY DEVICES REDUCE EQUIPMENT REPAIRS Providing both torque limiting and coupling functions in a compact design, Zero-Max overload safety devices protect motor and drive systems from overload and downtimes. Standard Torq-Tender devices have precision machined steel bodies with standard black oxide exteriors and come with lubrication options, including food-grade grease and/or dry lube coating. Standard H-TLC devices have a composite body with plated hardware components and are available with options for washdown and corrosion protection, including stainlesssteel exterior hardware components and stainless-steel internal springs.

Zero-Max | zero-max.com

ELECTRIC CYLINDER PROVIDES PRECISE, ENERGY-EFFICIENT MOTION An alternative to pneumatics, the Beckhoff electric cylinder is used as a direct drive for linear motion applications with high process forces and speeds. The integrated mechanism of the AA3000 electric cylinder is composed of precise roller bearings, a ball screw, and a guide to provide backlash-free translatory motion. The shaft end of the spindle has an external thread to mount conventional adapters. The flange size is based on ISO 15552 and has bolting points on both sides. A backlash-free holding brake and other spindle pitches are available as options.

Beckhoff Automation | beckhoff.com

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RECYCLING SYSTEM REDUCES WATER CONSUMPTION

BY UP TO 97%

The SPX Flow recycling system reduces the total amount of clean water a homogenizer uses by recapturing the water, sanitizing and chilling it, and then returning it to the homogenizer. A plug-and-play technology, the 21- x 32-in. homogenizer water recycling system can be used with new and existing homogenizers made by any manufacturer. If any problems emerge, the unit has its own control system, including failsafe features that default to fresh water without causing downtime. The recycling system has met the drinking water regulatory standards set by the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO).

SPX Flow | spxflow.com 46

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ROBOTS MEET ALL SAFETY AND HYGIENIC REQUIREMENTS

Kuka hygienic oil robots come in five standard models. All the HO robots use NSF H1 lubricant that is completely nontoxic and compatible with food products.

Suitable for use in secondary food processing applications where product is dry or packed, the robots have a light gray surface color that easily reveals any contamination.

Contact between the robots and food products is harmless to humans.

Kuka | kuka.com

MIXER ELIMINATES DUSTING, ACCELERATES MIXING TIME Built for fine dispersions and emulsions, the Ross batch mixer is equipped with solids/liquid injection manifold (SLIM) technology to deliver powders for quick wetout and complete dispersion into low-viscosity liquids. The batch high shear mixer assembly has progressive spiral porting that creates a vacuum that draws powders directly into the high shear zone and disperses individual solid particles into the liquid vehicle.

Available options include a floor-mounted design equipped with an air/oil hydraulic lift, and safety limit switches to prevent operation of the mixer while in a raised position or without a mix vessel in place.

The Secret to Safe, Smooth Conveying is Volkmann

Charles Ross & Son | mixers.com

MOTORS PROVIDE ADDITIONAL STRENGTH, STABILITY, AND COOLING ADVANTAGES Nord frame motors are drop-in compatible for existing systems. The exterior of the 3-hp and 4-hp 100 frame asynchronous motors has cooling fins that curve around the terminal box and the motor to enhance airflow and optimize cooling. Directly integrated imperial and metric conduit connections eliminate the need for NPT adapters. The rotor fan has a quickclick mechanism for simple install or removal, while the encoder is positioned between the fan and the B-end bearing shield to protect against mechanical influences. Options, such as a CAN-based absolute encoder, hand wheel, and cast-iron fan, are available for configuration.

Nord Drivesystems nord.com www.profoodworld.com

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A lot of our customers can’t talk about their secret to safe, smooth, gentle conveying but everyone knows the secret is Volkmann. Our patented pneumatic vacuum conveyors automatically transfer powders and other bulk materials from one point to another in fully enclosed, dust-tight, explosion-proof systems.

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Automated, hygienic and quiet Easy to use, easy to clean No tools disassembly Stainless steel as standard Fast lead times, easy to install

See action videos, get free test at Volkmannusa.com Volkmannusa.com | 609-265-0101 | 1900 Frost Road, Suite 102, Bristol, PA 19007

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PLANT FLOOR NEW PRODUCTS

INDUSTRIAL-GRADE LCD MONITORS ARE WATERPROOF Fully sealed against dirt, dust, and airborne particulates, Tru-Vu monitors have a 27-in. waterproof, industrial-grade LCD suitable for industrial environments where water and other liquids might be sprayed, splashed, or dripping. The VMW-27R-SS monitors feature 1,920 x 1,080 full HD resolution; HDMI and DisplayPort digital video inputs; and a NEMA 4X stainless-steel enclosure completely sealed on all sides. Antireflective glass over the screen improves image quality and protects the screen from damage. The monitors have a waterproof cable entry system and rear VESA holes for mounting.

Tru-Vu Monitors | tru-vumonitors.com

GRIPPER HANDLES SENSITIVE AND DELICATE OBJECTS The Piab vacuum gripper has four fingers and a sealed vacuum cavity, allowing it to hold objects up to 3.93-in. wide. Made in detectable silicone approved for direct contact with food, the piSoftgrip 100-4 gripper is suitable for high- and low-temperature environments, where it can be used to automate the handling of a variety of fresh, unpackaged, and delicate food items, as well as odd-shaped machine parts or injection-molded parts. The gripper does not require any specific programming; to ensure the right gripping force, the vacuum level can easily be adjusted.

Equipped with washdown fittings, the gripper is simple to clean.

Piab | piab.com

COMPUTER IS DESIGNED FOR MORE POWERFUL, HIGH-END APPLICATIONS Combining the advantages of decentralized cloud architectures with those of local network architectures, the Wago industrial computer offers low latency control, a high level of determinism, and simplified north/south connection with cloud-based services. With a dual-core i7 Intel processor, 16 GB RAM, and 256 GB flash, the 752-9800 Edge computer can store large amounts of information and has the flexibility to align to industrial hardware specifications. It runs applications, such as Node Red, Grafana, AI, and digital twins.

Wago | wago.com

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CONVEYORS ALLOW MORE LAYOUT FLEXIBILITY

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CASE STUDY INDUSTRIAL ARTS BREWING AARON HAND | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The Art of Scaling Up a Hazy IPA Industrial Arts Brewing, a young craft brewer in New York’s Hudson Valley, was maxing out the capacity of its 25 hL brewhouse. A second, larger brewhouse from Krones Steinecker was highly customized to handle its hoppy brew.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LIAM GOODMAN

The high volume of hops used to make Industrial Arts’ hazy IPA required some innovative thinking to optimize brewing.

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NDUSTRIAL ARTS BREWING began operations in the summer of 2016—in a sprawling pre-Civil War complex along the Hudson River in Garnerville, NY. “We were aiming to be a New York City area supplier of really fresh, hoppy beer. We stumbled on a hazy IPA as our flagship, and that’s sort of driven what we do,” says Jeff O’Neil, Industrial Arts founder and owner. The brewery’s Wrench IPA has had great success in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. “The fundamental difference between ours and a lot of the other ones that we’ve tried is ours is really dry and well fermented and has a decent amount of bitterness.”

The Garnerville plant operates with a 25 hL brewhouse from BrauKon and 100-barrel fermenters.

Though happy with the operation of the brewhouse, they were quickly running out of capacity.

“We do our best to fill those fermenters. We brew

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high-gravity wort and dilute it in the whirlpool—we do everything that we can to max out the capacity there,” O’Neil says. “We’ve grown relatively fast over our first five years, so we’ve always been trying to squeeze a little bit more out of all of our resources.”

By its fifth anniversary, it was time for Industrial Arts to move beyond the limitations of its original Garnerville facility. It expanded to a second facility in Beacon, NY, across the Hudson River, on the edge of town, where the brewer has turned an abandoned factory into a vibrant brewery campus.

Instead of a 25 hL brewhouse, the Beacon location has a 100 hL brewhouse—a CombiCube from Krones Steinecker. It is a fully automated brewhouse capable of eight to 10 brews per day, depending on the wort gravity. And it’s had an immediate impact on Industrial Arts’ ability to get the most out of its raw materials and supply the market with its Wrench IPA and other brews.

“We are seeing some increased efficiencies and some really wonderful yields out of the CombiCube,” says Mike McManus, director of brewing operations for Industrial Arts. “We built the CombiCube with Krones in order to cast out 100 hL with our flagship beer Wrench. But with every turn of Wrench, we’re getting a bit more than that.

Yields have been excellent, and efficiencies have been as advertised or better.”

“At this bigger scale—100 hL vs. 25—we are getting much more efficient extraction from our malt, we are getting much more hop utilization from our bigger boil, and we’re getting better yields out of the conical sedimentation tank we have rather than the traditional whirlpool,” O’Neil says. “We’re squeezing significantly more extract out of every bit of barley, wheat, oats, and hops that we put into the system.”

The Industrial Arts hazy IPA As a very hoppy, hazy IPA, the flagship Wrench presents some challenges in how the beer is made and thereby how the brewhouse is optimized.

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The CombiCube brewhouse from Krones Steinecker is designed for modularity, enabling brewers to put together a full system that works for its particular needs.

In the case of Industrial Arts, the process begins at the wet mill, where the pilsner malt and wheat get milled. That fills the mash kettle from the bottom with warm mash. The barley and wheat are blended into the mill while the oats drop down into a hydrator and get mixed in later in the mash kettle. The mash temperature is then ramped up before it’s pumped over to the lauter tun. The lauter tun runs to a receiving tank, which is a buffer tank used while the kettle is tied up. Once the kettle is clear of the previous batch, the next brew starts to fill again from the receiving side.

“We boil for 75 to 90 minutes, depending on the wort. Then we have a heat exchanger between the wort kettle and the sedimentation tank which allows us to knock the temperature from 100°C down to 80°C. So we’re cooling that wort down a lot,” O’Neil explains. “And then we make that big hop addition that I talked about. We add almost no hops during the boil.”

The idea is to retain more of the aroma compounds from the flower. “It volatizes fewer of the aroma compounds, and it just creates a different perception than a traditional hotter whirlpool addition,” O’Neil says. “It definitely helps us to create a different character than every other brewer. There’s a lot of similarities between hazy IPAs. We use a lot of the same varieties of hops, a lot of the same sort of ratios, but we’re able to create some different layers and some different characteristics with this control in the brewhouse.”

After knocking the temperature down and making the hops addition, the mixture rests in a sedimentation tank. After that, the wort is taken through a bed of whole hops flowers in a hop strainer, also known as a hop back, in order to maximize surface contact between the hot wort and the hops. The hop back was subcontracted out to Rolec.

The hop strainer, O’Neil explains, works much like a tea bag, with hop flowers placed inside a perforated wall. “Then the wort flows through them from above—kind of showers down through a bed of flowers and hydrates those dry flowers and flows through the flower to get some more hop character,” he says. This gives the beer more of a floral

PHOTO COURTESY OF LIAM GOODMAN

character, he explains, and also a bit of a mouthfeel.

And at the lower temperature provided by the heat exchanger, Industrial Arts is able to treat those hops a little more gently than most brewhouses are able to accomplish.

System optimization Throughout the brewhouse, Industrial Arts had special specifications that it needed along the way.

The CombiCube’s modularity played into the ability to refine everything for the hazy IPA. “There are challenges that present in lauterability, which is to say how fast the wort can flow through the lauter tun—because there’s such a high fraction of wheat and oats relative to traditional beers,” O’Neil says.

“For instance, it’s a lot easier to make with a wider lauter tun.”

The brewhouse was specifically engineered for the barley malt and wheat to go through a wet mill, while the oats bypass the wet mill, joining the rest of the mash later in the mash kettle. “We’re very conscious of how those grist percentages affect flowability through the process,” O’Neil explains.

“Thusly, the lauter tun is engineered specifically for our flagship beer, Wrench.”

When a brewer has a flagship beer, it’s important to understand how to make that flagship in the most efficient way possible. When Industrial Arts began working with BrauKon six or seven years ago, the plan then was that the flagship beer would be a really drinkable pale ale, O’Neil says. “And we

Compared with its 25 hL brewhouse at its original facility, Industrial Arts’ new 100 hL brewhouse achieves more efficient extraction and hops utilization because of its bigger scale.

www.profoodworld.com | April 2022 | PROFOOD WORLD

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A mezzanine view of the 100 hL CombiCube brewhouse shows the included energy recovery system, which recovers steam energy from the boiling wort and gives it back as hot water to use for cleaning or the next batch of beer.

PHOTO COURTESY OF LIAM GOODMAN

designed that brewhouse to make that wort over and over and over again.”

But things didn’t turn out as planned, and it ended up being the Wrench IPA that really took off and became the company’s flagship. So in the Garnerville facility, the team has had to make some adjustments to the lauter tun along the way to get it to flow better and to optimize the fermentation space. “So this time, in the second brewhouse, we knew for sure what we wanted to make. And the team at Krones and Steinecker were able to engineer to our specifications for color and gravity and bitterness and volume cast,” O’Neil says. “It was a much more known target what we wanted to accomplish. We were able to pair the cast volume from this brewhouse with our fermentation tanks. And with our new centrifuge and canning line, it’s all easier to imagine how these separate departments fit together when you know exactly what you’re making.”

There were some questions along the way about whether Industrial Arts would be pushing up against the limits of how much wort could fit into the kettle.

“This is a 100 hL CombiCube, which I think at the time was the biggest size that they offered in this category,” O’Neil says. “They were worried about whether we could fit enough wort into the kettle to offset how much would be absorbed by our relatively very large whirlpool hop additions.”

their heads, and they realized that we couldn’t yield 100 hL with this loading,” O’Neil recalls. “So they approached it from a different angle to use this conical sedimentation tank rather than a whirlpool.”

Virtually every brewhouse includes a whirlpool—a simple, wide, round tank with a flat bottom, where the wort from the boil kettle is pumped into a tangential path. This creates a whirlpool effect, forcing the solids into a pile at the center of the tank. Then the clear wort is decanted from the side of the tank.

The conical tank, instead, is more like a brewery fermenter, O’Neil explains, with the conical bottom forcing the solids to the bottom. “So in this brewhouse that we have, the system dumps the solids rather than decanting the liquid,” he says, adding that, with this system, Industrial Arts is able to lose less of the wort.

“Once they got over the initial shock of the sheer volume of hops that we use, they started down this path,” O’Neil says. “And I’m here to tell you that it works. Where the contract was for 100 hL of cast wort in spec, we are routinely getting 106 or 108 out of this flagship beer.” Instead of the roughly 170 hL (about 150 barrels) of finished beer expected after fermentation, Industrial Arts is yielding 200 hL. “Which is really beyond any expectation that we ever had.”

Conical sedimentation

Some other special systems included in the Industrial Arts brewhouse are an energy recovery vapor condenser and an automated clean-in-place (CIP) system.

“Everybody’s got a boil kettle, but not everyone has an energy recovery vapor condenser,” O’Neil

One of the innovations of the Steinecker brewhouse ultimately installed in the Beacon facility was replacing the traditional whirlpool with a conical sedimentation tank. “I think when the German team saw our hop usage rates, their eyes kind of popped out of 52

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Recovering vapor for energy and cleaning

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

3/29/22 10:33 AM

CASE STUDY INDUSTRIAL ARTS BREWING

says. “Almost all the steam energy that we are using to boil the wort, we get almost all of that back in the form of hot water. Then we use that hot water for cleaning or for the next batch of beer—it just goes back to a big, warm water holding tank.”

That’s something that Industrial Arts has at its original Garnerville brewhouse as well. “From the beginning, we’ve been really, really efficient with our usage of water and energy,” O’Neil adds.

The automated CIP system, however, is a new feature for Industrial Arts. “That’s an investment in efficiencies that we didn’t make in our first plant that has paid off in less chemical usage and less downtime for cleaning,” O’Neil says. Though it is difficult to quantify at this early stage, he points in particular to the time spent handling chemicals. “That’s a difference between a very small brewery that just has to do this stuff manually. And then at this scale, it’s just not practical or safe to handle the quantity of caustic detergents that we need to keep something like this clean.” The system is almost four times more efficient from a labor standpoint, he adds.

Process control and batching automation Automation also comes in the form of the Botec F1 process control system. Though Industrial Arts could have gone with a more universal control system, a colleague had recently installed a Krones brewhouse and was happy with the proprietary Botec software, O’Neil notes.

The smaller brewhouse in Garnerville is automated to a lesser degree with BrauKon’s proprietary control system. “Botec is a pretty big step up as far as automation is concerned,” McManus says. “We have a lot of granular control over process and throughput, and the trending and batch protocol are really fabulous. And we can use historical data to inform our process decisions when we’re working out a new recipe or a new process.”

The level of automation enables the operator to spend less time turning valves, focusing efforts more on monitoring the process more closely.

“With an automated system, you have the ability to drill in and really dial in pHs and temperatures— the small things that make a big impact over the long term with flavor and beer stability,” McManus says. “Also, it provides a level of repeatability that is the hallmark of what you’re trying to do in brewing—get it right, and then do it over and over.”

CombiCube flexibility The Industrial Arts brewhouse is already pretty loaded, O’Neil says, so he doesn’t think there’s much they might still add. But the modularity of the CombiCube

PHOTO COURTESY OF LIAM GOODMAN

Industrial Arts was able to have its CombiCube brewhouse customized to optimize brewing of its flagship Wrench IPA.

nonetheless provides some key flexibility. “The way it’s engineered, where there’s access to everything, if you wanted to do something wild like add a second kettle or some other piece of equipment like that, they would be able to splice that in,” he says.

O’Neil was impressed with the flexibility of the Krones Steinecker team as well. “Maybe it’s just that philosophy of being modular, but it’s really helpful that it’s not a rigid approach,” he says. “This was a very cooperative project, and they really wanted to make our wort. They did not try to tell us what our wort should be like, but they did tell us that some of our engineering ideas were insufficient.” O’Neil also adds, “They found solutions for the things that were really important to us that they weren’t necessarily offering if we didn’t ask.”

A key factor giving Steinecker the edge for a brewery like Industrial Arts is that it understands the operations of large-scale facilities and is applying those same principles for craft brewers, shrinking the technology down as needed, O’Neil notes. “I think that gives them an edge vs. some of the smaller, more craft-oriented suppliers who are trying to scale up,” he says. Twenty years ago, the kinds of technologies that Steinecker offers were only available on the biggest systems. “That’s one of the things that has set our brewery apart is that we’ve been a small brewery operating more like a bigger one, using technology, using control, inventory tracking software—all the tools that we could find to make us better, more efficient at what we’re doing… hopefully with the result of delivering the freshest, most flavorful and hoppiest beer to the market.”

Krones www.krones.com

Steinecker www.steinecker.com

www.profoodworld.com | April 2022 | PROFOOD WORLD

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CASE STUDY CUCINA FRESCA MELISSA GRIFFEN |

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Easy Washdown Thermoformer Reduces Downtime The gourmet food manufacturer installed the Ossid machine to improve production efficiency and meet order timelines.

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XCESSIVE DOWNTIME caused by maintenance is an issue that can significantly set back a company’s packaging and shipping times. Cucina Fresca, a Seattle-based gourmet food manufacturer serving Italian dishes to the Pacific Northwest and beyond, dealt with this challenge for a number of years. Finally, they’d had enough.

From humble beginnings as a mom-and-pop shop 30 years ago, the company steadily grew as its popularity took hold. Cucina Fresca soon expanded into the foodservice side of the business while maintaining a mom-and-pop philosophy in recipe creation. The company’s retail products began as fresh pastas, ravioli, tortellini, and sauces that emphasize freshness.

Cucina Fresca products are available in more than 1,500 grocery stores, specialty shops, and foodservice channels throughout North America.

The company’s foodservice line has also grown to offer more than 130 items, many of which are seasonally produced.

For several years, production was hampered by an unreliable form/fill/seal thermoforming machine.

About seven years ago, the company upgraded its

PHOTO COURTESY OF CUCINA FRESCA

Cucina Fresca packages its fresh pasta cuts in 4- by 8-in. sustainably produced food trays, with all products in semi-rigid packaging.

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tray sealing capabilities with a larger machine that could perform modified atmosphere packaging (MAP); however, the return on investment (ROI) was never realized.

“We got to the point years ago where I stopped calculating the additional cost of downtime because there wasn’t anything we could do about it. And honestly, I didn’t want to know how much it was costing us,” says Brad Glaberson, executive chef and owner of Cucina Fresca. “It was seven years of hell for us dealing with this machine that never worked, was very expensive, and could never get decent service for it.”

New thermoformer reduces downtime Through a trusted industry professional, Glaberson and company president Pat Clingman were introduced to Ossid, the North American distributor of Reepack, to help replace their packaging operations.

The Ossid machine recommended to Cucina Fresca was the ReeForm T45 Thermoformer. The T45 is engineered to accommodate a wide variety of food packaging options and can produce a flexible or semi-rigid package.

The ReeForm T45 features a stainless-steel frame and sheeting for easy sanitation in washdown environments as well as a user-friendly control panel. It can accommodate flexible and rigid films with a thickness up to 900 µm and a film width up to 560 mm, tray forming depth up to 120 mm, and a maximum cut-off of 460 mm.

Ossid had a T45 available and ready to ship when Cucina Fresca reached out.

“We received the T45 three weeks after our first call with Ossid. It was amazing how quickly everyone jumped in with all hands on deck, because it was pretty crucial that we get a new machine,” Clingman recalls. “They seemed to move heaven and earth to get the deal done and get it out here.”

The machine arrived in February 2021. Ossid was onsite at Cucina Fresca for about 10 days getting

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The ReeForm T45 features a stainless-steel frame and sheeting for easy sanitation in washdown environments as well as a user-friendly control panel.

the machine installed, as well as teaching staff various preventive maintenance tips and procedures. The machine has proven easy to operate, Glaberson says, with an intuitive human-machine interface (HMI) that guides operators to the specific section of the machine if a problem arises.

This has improved troubleshooting, especially for a diverse workforce as the HMI supports dozens of languages, he adds.

PHOTO COURTESY OF OSSID

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Hitting the right speeds Cucina Fresca packages its fresh pasta cuts in 4- by 8-in. sustainably produced food trays, with all products in semi-rigid packaging. The T45 is running the semi-rigid bottom web with MAP and can also run a flexible bottom web creating a vacuum package or a vacuum skin pack (VSP), according to Brian Guillaume, regional sales manager for Ossid.

Though the T45 can produce eight to 10 cycles per minute, Cucina Fresca runs the machine at a slower speed to accommodate the semi-rigid tray material, which takes longer to heat and form the tray. The company is also doing a gas-flush application, which requires additional time as well. This speed and rate of production is right where the food maker needs it to be, Glaberson says, with the machine packaging several thousand trays per day.

Key benefits that Cucina Fresca has seen since installation of the new thermoformer include reduction of production backlogs and inefficiencies, as well as employees no longer standing around during downtime due to maintenance issues, Glaberson says.

“This new machine has alleviated so much stress in our lives,” Clingman says.

“The communication with Ossid was great.

I told them the next time we need a new machine, we’re going to reach out to them first. They definitely earned our trust and confidence.”

Ossid www.ossid.com

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4/1/22 8:41 AM

CASE STUDY AMWAY AARON HAND |

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Energy Drink Meets Skyrocketing Demand Through Digital Thread The PlantPAX control system from Rockwell Automation is enabling Amway to achieve greater operator efficiency, real-time troubleshooting, simplified data analysis, and increased manufacturing flexibility, among other improvements, through increased connectivity.

Amway was able to apply one control and information system across all processes to improve capacity and product quality, save energy and raw materials, and reduce process variations and human intervention.

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EPENDING ON YOUR AGE, you might remember Amway as a multi-level seller of cleaning supplies and other household goods.

The company has expanded in several directions since its beginnings, including personal care products, cookware, vitamins and supplements, and more.

One of Amway’s newest products is its XS brand of energy drinks. Marketed as a blast of energy without sugar or carbs, the drinks were originally developed by two Amway independent business owners (IBOs) in 2002. A year later, Amway became the exclusive distributor, and XS quickly became Amway’s No. 1 seller. Amway acquired the brand outright in 2015 and has since tripled the XS business.

Since then, the market for functional beverage has continued to grow. The market was already on the rise, but that took off even further once the pandemic began. Lockdowns not only were a time to explore new foods and beverages, but also health was top of mind. Energy drinks make up the largest share of the U.S. functional beverage market at an estimated $18.6 billion, according to Euromonitor, and their popularity continues to escalate.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

What this all meant to Amway and its plant in Ada, Mich., was that it was in desperate need of increased production capabilities. Amway had previously had the XS energy drink co-manufactured, but decided to bring production in-house to improve efficiency and cost structure. The company made a $15 million investment in its 100-acre campus in Ada—not only to provide the ability to boost production and enable further expansion in the future, but also to install the kinds of flexible systems that would accommodate a range of recipes.

Formerly making liquid soaps not only for its own brands but co-manufacturing for several other big industry names as well, Amway was looking to get out of contract manufacturing, according to Rob Dargie, senior electrical engineer for Amway. The idea, then, was to use that plant for the new XS production. “We closed the liquids plant. It was one of the older plants, and we completely gutted that thing,” he says. “So it really was a greenfield plant then.”

Finding the digital thread Amway has been on a digital transformation journey for more than five years, Dargie notes. He began by overhauling the control network, which was dominated by a range of proprietary legacy networks that did not communicate well with one another.

“Since then, we started building the Ethernet structure and then some bridge connections to those legacy communications,” he says.

They began pulling more information from the systems, but it was challenging to seamlessly connect legacy IT systems and homegrown manufacturing systems to create the digital thread. They needed a control system that could bring it all together, enabling continuous data flow to improve and optimize operations.

Amway turned to Rockwell Automation and its PlantPAx modern distributed control system (DCS)

| April 2022 | www.profoodworld.com

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to get the job done. The system will help the manufacturer collaborate in real time across the value chain, validating new lines and processes virtually, simplifying data analysis and increasing manufacturing flexibility. As Amway integrates the solution into its product lifecycle management, it will achieve better connectivity across its supply chain as well.

Though Amway engineers had no experience with the PlantPAx DCS, they had years of experience with Rockwell Automation controllers and ControlLogix and trusted PlantPAx to meet the new demands. Amway specified the Rockwell system not only for the processing side of the plant but for its Krones packaging line as well. Being able to apply one control and information system across all processes helped to improve capacity and product quality, save energy and raw materials, and reduce process variations and human intervention.

The team used modern batch control strategies to support flexible production needs and standardize company procedures while accelerating product and process development. The system’s standard methodologies, process libraries, and reusable code meant better equipment utilization and improved quality, visibility, and access to actionable data.

Dargie makes note of the mixproof valve manifold technology that Amway incorporated into the new XS plant, raving about the streamlined operation and the elimination of hoses. “This is a brand new technology when it comes to piping or control,” he comments. “But the PlantPAx system already had that stuff in the programming software.

So it was very easy to program.”

Easier troubleshooting PlantPAx has also made troubleshooting easier and faster. With the sprawling campus that Amway has— multiple production buildings and a maintenance operation spread across facilities—it can take 10 minutes for a technician to physically get to a machine. Real-time troubleshooting has made it easier for operators to be more self-reliant.

“With a lot of the troubleshooting before, you’d have to call an electrician to come out, get into the PLC, and find out what’s wrong. With PlantPAx, most of the troubleshooting is right on the HMI,” Dargie says. “It’s been very rare cases that I’ve ever heard of an electrician being called out to figure something out.”

More than a few times during the pandemic, the system was able to run with a single employee at the controls. “Once operators spent some time with the

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

new system and realized the power of the PlantPAx DCS, their confidence grew both in the system and in their own capabilities, and they became more agile and self-supporting,” Dargie says.

Installation through COVID lockdowns The initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic added some complexity to an already aggressive schedule of extensive upgrades. “It was 2019, and we did the FATs for the packaging line in Germany—way ahead of schedule, at the end of September, into October,” Dargie recalls. “The equipment and tanks started arriving in January. We were getting ready for installation by the end of February, into March.”

It was the middle of March 2020 that lockdowns began—and that Dargie got COVID himself. “It kind of threw the whole project into a frenzy,” he recalls.

And yet the project remained on schedule, with everybody plugging away during lockdown. “We had actually planned for August to be up and running, and we made our first product run in July.”

Dargie was amazed at how well everything went, hearing very little about any difficulties along the way. “What kept us on schedule was the fact that everything we were doing was part of a standard process; we didn’t need to write our own code. That would have added six months to the process and opened us up for errors,” he says. “We got to market as quickly as we did with zero downtime and no setbacks because everything operated as promised.”

Amway is enjoying smoother production, higher quality, greater operator efficiency, real-time troubleshooting, and almost lights out automation, according to Dargie. “Our performance is off the charts compared to anything we’ve achieved in the past,” he says. “We flipped the switch, and it just worked.”

Krones www.krones.com

Amway’s 8,000-gal dilution tanks, shown with the mixproof valve bank in the forefront.

Rockwell Automation www.rockwellautomation.com

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CASE STUDY HARDY BUOYS MELISSA GRIFFEN | CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Automated Bagging Line Helps Smoked Fish Business Meet Demand Hardy Buoys turns to an automated bagging line to meet increasing customer demands, saving $3,500 per week in labor.

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ARDY BUOYS SMOKED FISH, founded in 1994 by Bruce and Carol Dirom, is a provider to major grocery store chains across Canada. Increased demand for its products has steered the company toward automating its packaging line.

The first step was the purchase of a semiautomatic multi-head scale, which reduced labor from 14 people to six with the same production output.

Before the pandemic, Hardy Buoys’ sales were increasing, but the company had been struggling for three years to attract plant floor workers to its facility in Port Hardy, B.C., explains Bruce Dirom, founder and president. This struggle only became more of a challenge as the pandemic emerged, so the company had to short some of its orders, restricting customer expansion. As product demand continued to grow, Hardy Buoys decided it was time to embrace more automated solutions.

Dirom wanted to find a supplier with Canadian representation that had the parts and service support levels Hardy Buoys needed. While searching through a list of sales reps that he had dealt with in the past, Dirom came across Mark Evangelista, who was working with Plan It Packaging Systems, a provider of complete automated packaging solutions with representation in Canada. With Evangelista’s 20+ years of experience in the packaging industry and the confidence he showed in Plan It’s solutions, Dirom found a match.

“We expressed what we were doing with our current demands and what our future demands may be,” Dirom says. “We were probably doing 2,000 packages a day and we expected we’d need to get to 5,000 packages a day. So we got a machine that could do 10,000 packages a day.”

Plan It offered its RotoBagger, a pre-made pouch machine with a multi-head weigher, platform and sanitary washdown inclined conveyor.

This equipment requires only four operators, saving Hardy Buoys $3,500 per week in labor.

Weighing the product demands precision and used to require 14 workers. The installation of the RotoBagger has taken that number down to four.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PLAN IT

Easy-to-use bagging line The pandemic delayed installation by three to four weeks, but once Plan It’s techs were in the Hardy Buoys facility, installation ran smoothly. Techs provided seven days of training in two parts—primary training and formal training on setup—to plant operators.

Minor issues occurred during implementation such as bags that wouldn’t open correctly because the wrong size was used. Small equipment adjustments were also made to keep the machine working at full capacity.

Plan It’s excellent customer service allowed for easy adjustments and reassurance in the purchase, Dirom says. “I can pick up the phone at any time and be talking to a tech,” he says. “When I would talk to any one of them, they would have that confidence in their equipment. Their reassurance has given me a little more sleep at night.”

Once the equipment is set up for a particular product run, it virtually runs on its own and is easy for the operators to use. Some employees will revert www.profoodworld.com

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CASE STUDY HARDY BUOYS

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The Plan It system inside the Hardy Buoys facility includes a multi-head weigher and the RotoBagger, a pre-made pouch machine, with a platform and sanitary washdown inclined conveyor.

to manual methods, however, if they are not continually directed.

“This equipment is big for a facility like ourselves, so it’s intimidating. When they get to work, they don’t think of that machine first, they think of how they used to do things,” Dirom says. “They want to be productive in the way that they did in the past, and we need to keep on saying they [do not] need to do things the old way unless the machine isn’t operating.”

Hardy Buoys’ customers, on the other hand, have taken the new installation as a green light to increase business. The largest benefit has been with co-packing customers. “This machine has been instrumental to these customers to say, ‘They can handle our production now because they’ve got this automated equipment,’” Dirom says.

Another benefit is the company’s ability to produce inventory, Dirom explains. To prep for increased orders around Christmas, Hardy Buoys needed product in inventory when orders came in rather than the typical weeks-long turnaround.

The seafood processor is also seeing that, though PHOTO COURTESY OF PLAN IT the equipment was primarily purchased for salmon jerky production, other products are being packaged easily on the line as well. “We’re able to do 1-lb bags of salmon nuggets. You can imagine that at 35 lb a minute going through this machine, in 60 minutes you’ve done your day of packaging,” Dirom says. “It used to take 12 people a day and a half to hand-pack. Now we’re doing it with four people.”

Hardy Buoys is already discussing 2022 purchases with Plan It—from metal detectors and checkweighers to case erectors and automatic case packers.

Plan It Packaging Systems www.planitpackaging.com

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AD INDEX COMPANY

WEBSITE

PAGE

Assured Automation

www.assuredautomation.com

41

Atkore International

www.Atkore.com/Calbrite

33

BUNTING

www.buntingmagnetics.com

38

Busch Vacuum Solutions

www.buschusa.com

60

Central States Industrial

www.csidesigns.com

8

Central States Industrial

www.csidesigns.com

27

Central States Industrial

www.csistore.com

42

ROSS Mixers

www.mixers.com

23

Clayton Industries, Inc.

www.claytonindustries.com

49

Coperion K-Tron

www.coperion.com/f-news

12-a

Eriez Magnetics

www.purity.eriez.com

Flexicon Corporation

www.flexicon.com

GEA

www.gea.com

1

Gericke USA, Inc.

www.GerickeGroup.com

2

Graphite Metallizing

www.graphalloy.com

49

Harpak-ULMA Packaging LLC

www.harpak-ulma.com

58

Heat and Control, Inc.

www.heatandcontrol.com

55

Industrial Magnetics, Inc.

www.magnetics.com

34

Klockner Pentaplast, Food Packaging

www.kpfilms.com

Linde

www.lindefood.com/innovations

17

Lubriplate Lubricants

www.lubriplate.com

31

Munson Machinery Co. Inc.

www.munsonmachinery.com

PACK EXPO International 2022

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ProFood World Leadership Sponsors

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C-3

SEW Eurodrive, Inc.

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Shick Esteve

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Sterling Systems & Controls, Inc.

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45

Stolle Machinery Company

www.stollemachinery.com/PRC

48

Urschel Laboratories, Inc.

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Van der Graaf (VDG)

www.vandergraaf.com/pf

C-1

Volkmann, Inc.

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47

Wire Belt Company of America

www.wirebelt.com

25

16 C-2

5

7 62

11

ProFood World ® (ISSN 2476-06760, USPS 22310) is a registered trademark of PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

ProFood World ® is published 7x a year (February, April, June, August, September, October, December) by PMMI Media Group, 401 North Michigan Avenue Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60611; 312.222.1010; Fax: 312.222.1310. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, IL, and additional mailing offices. Copyright 2022 by PMMI. All rights reserved. Materials in this publication must not be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Applications for a free subscription may be made online at www.profoodworld.com. Paid subscription rates per year are $55 in the U.S., $80 Canada and Mexico by surface mail; $130 Europe and South America. $200 in all other areas. To subscribe or manage your subscription to ProFood World, visit ProFoodWorld.com/subscribe. Free digital edition available to qualified individuals. POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to: ProFood World, 401 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1700, Chicago, IL 60611. PRINTED IN USA by Quad Graphics. The opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of PMMI. Comments, questions and letters to the editor are welcome and can be sent to: jfassl@pmmimediagroup.com. We make a portion of our mailing list available to reputable firms. If you would prefer that we don’t include your name, please write us at the Chicago, IL address. Volume 6, Number 2.

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TECH PERSPECTIVE AARON HAND | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Creating a Succulent Roasted Chicken With Higher Yield GEA explains how replacing a traditional tumble-cook process with an inject-tumble-cook process, along with its latest-generation spiral oven, produces yield boosts of up to 10%.

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EA INTRODUCED its first CookStar—a double-spiral, two-zone oven—back in 1992, when fully cooked products were gaining popularity with consumers and fast food was beginning to take hold in Europe. Through the years, the equipment supplier has made upgrades to the CookStar line, such as improvements in capacity and airflow, an impingement zone, and three-phase cooking.

Its latest generation, the CookStar 1000, released last year, includes an improved heat exchanger technology that generates up to 25% more heating capacity. In a recent webinar, not only do GEA’s experts detail the workings of the new oven, they explain the science behind the benefits of adding an extra injection step before cooking meat in the oven. Yields are improved by locking in juice marinades and by fast and precise cooking.

The physics behind water binding To fully understand the arguments for the best way to inject the meat with brine, GEA first took some time to explain the importance of the brine itself and how it is applied.

“You receive your raw material in the factory, and you have your muscle in there. But on top of that, you have plenty of drip—that is the lack of water holding capacity,” explains Victoria Metaute, a GEA food technologist focused on the marination process. “The holding capacity is the viability of the meat to be able to sustain all the natural water through all the processes that you are going to put that meat through.”

Of key importance is the pH balance of the meat.

There will be a natural pH loss in the meat—and the more that pH level drops, the more water you will lose from the meat, Metaute explains. “That is very much attached to your end yield,” she says.

To avoid pH depletion, the earlier you process the meat, the better. Keeping the pH well controlled between 5.5 and 6 will keep your protein

PHOTO COURTESY OF GEA

ligaments completely entangled, and will give you the spaces you need to insert the brine or to hold natural moisture.

But also important is how the ingredients of that brine are combined. With water as the base, typically salt and phosphates are added. Those are functional ingredients that work well together, but the order of their addition is not trivial and is also not well understood, according to Metaute. “For example, I’m making my brine and I’m having my water, and now I put my salt, and after that I dissolve it, and I put my phosphate in. Later on, there are some stones in there. And that is the problem that is going to happen. You’re going to have undissolved functioning ingredients that are going to mess with your yield at the end of the process.”

Instead, Metaute recommends adding the phosphate to the water before the salt. “Give it the time for it to be completely dissolved, and after that will be your salt,” she says. “Those two together will improve your pH. It will be increased and it will be out of the electrostatic point—where you’re actually running out of water.” Beyond that, you can add your other ingredients, such as starches and fibers, which will help hold moisture in. www.profoodworld.com

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For poultry brine injections, GEA recommends 2 mm injection needles with its MultiJector system for better brine distribution that does not destroy the structure of the meat.

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The GEA CookStar 1000 industrial spiral oven offers an improved heat exchanger design and optimized horizontal and vertical airflow.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GEA

Injection technology Injecting the meat before tumbling speeds up the process and generates more capacity in your tumblers, reiterates Bart Leenders, product specialist in marination for GEA. He explains the GEA MultiJector technology used for the process. “If we combine physics and state-of-the-art equipment, we can end up with 6% extra yield during a process if you compare it with the traditional way, by tumbling only,” he says. “If you only tumble, you do not use all the water binding capacity of your meat.”

Adding the injection step distributes the brine much more evenly and quickly to the whole piece of meat—not only at the surface, but also into the core. “By that, the customer ends up with a nice and juicy piece of meat,” Leenders adds.

For poultry, GEA recommends a 2 mm needle.

“If you compare it with a 3 mm needle, you’ve got the benefit that it creates some small needle holes that easily close, and you keep the brine inside,” Leenders says. “With that small needle pattern, you’re creating way more injection spots as with a wide 3 mm pattern.”

Also important is what GEA calls its Time-inMeat technique—a linear movement with a constant speed. “In a common process, your needle stroke is quite long, so the time is limited that it is in the meat. Some equipment is already able to adjust the height to certain positions; you create a little bit longer time in the meat,” he explains. “What we can do with our equipment is that we can adjust the height just above the meat. With the maximum time in meat, we can inject with lower pressures. Lower pressures mean less damage of your structure and better water binding capacity.”

Third-generation CookStar To take the 6% yield improvement gained by the injection step up to 10% factors in use of the CookStar 1000, where GEA uses a three-zone cooking concept that combines horizontal and vertical air speeds.

“Cooking is all about having control over your parameters. In the CookStar, we have a set of three parameters that we control,” says Luuc van Landveld, product manager for GEA. “First of all, there’s the temperature. We can control the temperature in two zones independent from each other.

We can go as high as up to 250°C and we can go down in the other zone. So we can have a differential temperature between the two zones of up to 150°C.” The second parameter is the dewpoint. “We use the moisture in the oven—the steam—to transfer the latent heat to the product. Also there, we can control the dewpoint independent from each other.

We can go as high as 95°C and as low as 45°C.” Finally, GEA controls the speed of the air in the zones. “We can do it over the horizontal zones anywhere between 1 and 7 m/s,” van Landveld says.

“And then in the booster impingement zone, we can go up as high as 35 m/s.”

GEA uses all of these parameters to optimize settings for customers’ cooking processes. The results they have seen are significant. “We compared a purely horizontal oven with our three-zone turbo CookStar,” van Landveld says. “What you see in the first zone, you normally use the latent heat of the steam to bring up the temperature. But then you need to set color because the steam doesn’t set any color. So, you need to cook on temperature to get color. What is different on the CookStar is that we use this booster impingement zone in the middle.

What we do is we hit the product with fast-moving hot air. So we kind of blow-dry the surface and the surface only; we don’t want to lose any yield in the core. Now that we did the surface treatment, we actually need far less time to develop even more color. So basically, what you end up with is a shorter cooking time and having a more brown coating.”

With spiral ovens, there is often a temperature difference over the width of the belt, causing users to overcook their product to compensate for the worst part of the belt. Instead, GEA came up with a way to reduce the temperature difference over the width of the belt to only 1.5°C. “That enables us to really reduce the need for overcooking. So bottom line, it gives you better yields and shorter cooking times.”

Ultimately, combining the injection step before cooking creates a succulent chicken with improved yield. The GEA MultiJector locks in marinades, while the CookStar 1000 oven cooks fast and with precision.

GEA www.gea.com

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