Food & Beverage Industry News February 2023

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Welcome back to Food & Beverage Industry News for 2023. I hope everyone had an amazing break over the New Year and is as excited for the prospect of this year as I am. We are one year closer to some new sustainability and efficiency targets, with 2025 being the first year with major targets expected to be met.

In the two years I have been writing about the industry I have learned that many key stakeholders are well on track to be more efficient and sustainable by 2025, with many naming 2023 as the first year of meeting new targets.

This is an example of how the industry has taken the lead in overhauling systems, and in some cases long held traditions, to ensure it remains competitive and cutting edge.

The impacts of the last three years on both on-shore manufacturing and supply chain disruptions have also helped to grow a renewed focus on locally sourced and manufactured goods, which also ties into the current demands of consumers seeking out the best sourced products.

This year also sees the return of foodpro, which was sadly cancelled at the last minute in 2021 due to COVID-19 disruptions. After last year’s events, Auspak being a major one, it’s exciting to see other events finally returning post-COVID.

In this edition of Food & Beverage Industry News we have a special focus on ingredients, and functional ingredients. Both of which has undergone innovations off the back of general advancements in technology, but also the ever-changing demands and needs of consumers.

unfortunate as it was, also helped to demonstrate the consumers desire to play an active role in reducing food waste, plastic use, and environmentally negative practices. The industry has already shown its capability in evolving and thanks to this, consumers are rewarding them with support.

A string of emerging, and SME companies, have experienced this support firsthand and as a result we have seen the likes of the Bondi Brewing Company, or Nexba, fins strong market share in a short window of time.

And as demonstrated in our Meet the Manufacturer feature, some companies have moved directly in food or beverage manufacturing after noticing growing demand. In this case for wheat and gluten free baked goods. Interestingly, the challenges faced by the manufacturer, who had previously run businesses in the retail sector, were clearly outweighed by the clear concerns and demands of consumers. Because of this, the Choices Food Group was able to survive the harsh conditions imposed by the pandemic and continue to carve out a strong niche in the baked goods sector. It continues to look like an exciting time to be involved in food and beverage manufacturing because changing times usually lead to exciting innovations, already proven by any of the companies we have covered in recent years.

As a result, I’m once again excited to be covering the industry this year, attend events, meet more of you in person.

I’m also excitied to see what new innovations we are yet to dicover this year and how the industry will continue to evolve.

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From food, to beverage, colouring, to flavouring. Every little bit helps when it comes to building a strong customer base with brand loyalty. The faltering of the RedCycle program, as

I also look forward to wkring with many of you again, and some of you who might be new to the publication.

Until next month. Happy reading!

WELCOME
4 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
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8 NEWS

16 MEET THE MANUFACTURER

The story of how a retail entrepreneur has successfully transitioned into manufacturing gluten free baked goods.

20 CONSTRUCTION

Rob Blythman and Tony Tate, from Total Construction, help clients avoid common pitfalls companies make when building new facilities.

22 MACHINERY

Select Equip has brought PurPak machinery to the Australian manufacturing industry.

24 PACKAGING

Favourite Packaging has released recyclable packaging without PET layering.

26 FLUID TRANSFER

Continental’s Purple Hose product has proven to be a perfect solution for breweries, as well as other beverage manufacturers.

28 DIGITAL SOLUTIONS

Veeva Systems provides the food and beverage industry with cloud-based data, software, and service solutions which cater to unique operating requirements.

30 AUTOMATION

Consumer demands are putting extra pressure on manufacturers to respond with mass customisation and APS can help.

32 COLOURING

Oterra brings alive the new Pantone Colour of the Year in its latest offering for natural colours.

34 FOOD SAFETY

Earlee Products provides the food and beverage industry with cutting edge innovations including its latest, Flav®Fresh.

36 SPRAY DRYING

Spray Systems’ Fluid Air low temperature spray drying technology promises better yields than more traditional methods.

38 EVENTS

The Melbourne International Coffee Expo returns to Melbourne in 2023 with a string of key stakeholders already committed to the event.

40 MARKETWATCH

41 DAIRY

42 NEW PRODUCTS

6 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au CONTENTS
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Maggie Beer Holdings appoints new CEO

Following an extensive global search, Maggie Beer Holdings Ltd (MBH) has appointed Kinda Grange as its chief executive officer following the resignation of current CEO and managing director, Chantale Millard.

A food and beverage industry leader, Grange has a track record of building brands with a focus on marketing, innovation, insights, and data experience that aligns with MBH’s ambitious brand and e-commerce growth strategy.

Grange most recently held the position of joint managing director Australia at Goodman Fielder, one of Australasia’s largest FMCG organisations

and where she spent 18 years in several senior leadership roles including chief growth officer, group head of marketing and research and development ANZ, general manager grocery and marketing director grocery ANZ.

While at Goodman Fielder, Grange had responsibility for e-commerce, digital marketing and product categories that include, plant-based foods, spreads & oils, bakery, in-home baking & dairy.

Grange will join MBH as CEO on 1 March 2023. Her appointment comes as Maggie Beer Holdings completes its transformation and strategic repositioning and is primed to leverage its position as Australia’s leading purveyor of

premium food, beverage, and gifting products.

Reg Weine, MBH’s Chairman, said “Kinda’s impressive track record of delivering strategic and operational business outcomes, combined with her entrepreneurial and innovation mindset will accelerate MBH’s vision & strategy.

“Having most recently led a business with $1.5b in revenue across Australia, with twelve manufacturing sites, and 1600 employees, Kinda clearly has the strategic, commercial and leadership experience to be able to leverage our leading e-commerce platform and Maggie Beer branded portfolio.”

Grange said “It is a privilege to be

Maggie Beer Holdings Ltd (MBH) has appointed Kinda Grange as its chief executive officer.

joining the Maggie Beer Holdings group and to have the opportunity to take the business to the next level. I am passionate about food and am excited by the opportunity to build on the amazing foundation already created.” F

Global first as KitKat is wrapped in paper packaging

KitKat has announced its firstever exclusive trial of innovative new paper packaging on fan favourite KitKat four-finger with Coles Supermarkets across Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern

Territory.

Consumers can now buy KitKat bars featuring the new paper wrapper for a limited time. More than a quarter of a

stores for the trial – enough to stretch almost 50km end-to-end.

The new paper packaging trial is a bid to innovate and explore every avenue

which includes using less plastic, recycled plastic, and alternatives to plastic packaging.

Nestlé Oceania general manager of confectionery and snacks Chris O’Donnell said, “We’re proud to be the first country globally to trial KitKat in paper packaging, as an important step towards reducing our use of virgin plastic. With all packaging innovations, our priority is to ensure we deliver the same delicious KitKat with creamy chocolate and crisp wafer.”

“Our partnership with Coles has made this packaging trial a possibility, where Aussie chocolate lovers can have their say on our innovative KitKat packaging. The feedback we receive on this trial will help shape the next step of giving Aussies their favourite break.”

Coles general manager of grocery Leanne White said, “Coles is thrilled to partner with Nestlé on this important trial which will provide customers the opportunity to have a say on new packaging options and help the company lead the charge in innovative solutions.” F

NEWS 8 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
KitKat has announced its first-ever exclusive trial of innovative new paper packaging on fan favourite KitKat.

Processed meat market to hit US$ 519.8 billion by 2033

From 2023 to 2033, global processed meat consumption is expected to rise at a 4.5 per cent CAGR, according to a new report by market research and competitive intelligence provider Fact.MR.

The global processed meat market is currently valued at US$ 335 billion and is expected to reach a revenue valuation of US$ 519.8 billion by 2033.

Eating habits and lifestyles have changed dramatically in the last few

decades, resulting in high demand for processed foods around the world. Globalisation and the growing popularity of various cuisines have resulted in increased consumption of various types of meat.

Changing consumer preferences, high availability of processed foods, hectic lifestyles, a growing working women population, rising per capita disposable income, advancements in freezing technology, and an increase in demand

for fresh meat from a health-conscious population are key factors expected to drive processed meat demand through 2033.

Fact.MR has profiled a detailed and comprehensive analysis of all the key prospects influencing market development on a regional and global level in this revised processed meat market research survey.

Ethical concerns about meat consumption have resulted in the development of lab-grown meats, a trend

that has the potential to completely alter the landscape of the processed meat industry in the future.

Aspiring processed meat companies are concentrating their efforts on developing new technologies and techniques for producing meat in the most efficient manner possible.

Processed meat suppliers are focusing on diversifying their product portfolio by launching new aged meat cuts, dry-aged beef, sausages, and cured meats. F

NEWS www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 9
Ethical concerns about meat consumption have resulted in the development of lab-grown meats.

Australian scientists join in support of meat and livestock production

Australian scientists from universities and research institutions across the nation have signed a major international declaration in support of the essential role of animal agriculture in a sustainable food system.

The Australian scientists join more than 550 others from around the globe as signatories to The Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock, which was created in October following the two-day International Summit on the Societal Role of Meat.

The Dublin-based summit brought together the world’s most respected academics and researchers from the US, Europe and Australia – and was designed as a science-focused follow-on from discussions held at the United Nations Food System Summit in 2021.

Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC) CEO, Chris Taylor, attended the summit and said its three areas of focus included the role of meat in diet and health, the role of meat in a sustainable environment, and the

role of meat in society, economics and culture.

The one-page declaration is continuing to gain traction within the international science community – rising from some 200 signatories in October to more than 600 in December. Its opening statement says, ‘livestock

systems must progress on the basis of the highest scientific standards” and that they are “too precious to society to become the victim of simplification, reductionism or zealotry’.

The declaration acknowledges today’s food systems ‘face an unprecedented double challenge’,

including the provision of food security and nutrition for the globe’s growing population.

It also acknowledges issues around ‘some methods and scale of animal production systems’ which face challenges relating to biodiversity, climate change and nutrient flows. F

Trade deal unlocks access to India

The Australian Government has welcomed the beginning of the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA).

Australian businesses now have greater access to the Indian market of 1.4 billion people, and one of the world’s fastest growing major economies. A serious window of opportunity has opened for Australian exporters to move into an export market valued at over $24 billion in 2021, ahead many of our key competitors.

Tariffs have been eliminated on over 85 per cent of Australian exports to India and locked them in at zero. This includes key exports such as wool, lamb, barley, oats, fresh rock lobsters, cosmetics and many metallic ores, critical minerals, non-ferrous metals and titanium dioxide.

Tariffs on a further 5 per cent of exports, including macadamia

nuts, avocados, berries, seafood, pharmaceuticals, cochlear implants, vitamins, infant formula, breakfast

cereals, pasta, sandalwood chips, pumps and fillers, excavating machinery parts and lifting machinery for mines, are lower

today and will be phased down to zero within 6 years.

In addition, Australian producers of premium wine, lentils, almonds, oranges and strawberries are now receiving significant reductions to high Indian tariffs.

Australian manufacturers, processors and consumers will also benefit from the elimination of tariffs on imports of Indian goods and inputs.

Australian services suppliers are also gaining full or partial market access across 85 sectors and subsectors.

Importantly, the trade agreement will support tourism and workforce needs in regional Australia by making 1,000 Work and Holiday Program places available to young Indian travellers.

India is Australia’s sixth-largest trading partner and fourth-largest export market. F

NEWS 10 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
The declaration acknowledges today’s food systems ‘face an unprecedented double challenge’. Tariffs have been eliminated on over 85 per cent of Australian exports to India and locked them in at zero.

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Australian Dairy Farmers re-elect Rick Gladigau to board

South Australian dairy farmer Rick Gladigau has been re-elected as a director and President of national policy and advocacy organisation

Australian Dairy Farmers (ADF), following ADF’s AGM today.

The ADF Board remains unchanged as:

• R ick Gladigau, South Australia (President)

• Brian Tessmann, Queensland

• Ben Bennett, Victoria

• Heath Cook, New South Wales

• A ndreas Clark, South Australia (Independent director)

Victorian dairy farmers Glenn Britnell

and Ian Morris were also candidates in a three-way contest for the one seat on the Board open at this year’s AGM.

Following the AGM, at a meeting of ADF’s Board and National Council, Mr Gladigau was re-elected President for a second 12-month term.

Mr Gladigau thanked ADF members for participating in the election process and, in doing so, supporting the organisation.

“I look forward to continuing to lead ADF for the benefit of all dairy farmers,” he said.

“ADF thanks Glenn and Ian for nominating and taking part in the election of a Business director.” F

Riverina grape growers at centre of new profitability initiatives

Winegrape growers in Riverina have been central to the development of three new collaborative initiatives launched today by the collaborative Wine Inland Productivity & Profitability (WIPP) project that is providing locally driven business support.

A wine grape trading platform, budgeting tool and local coordinator for Riverina are the first results from the three-year project that is co-designing local solutions with the region’s growers in collaboration with state and national, peak industry bodies and organisations.

The three-year WIPP project – a partnership between NSW Wine Industry Association, Riverina Wine Grape Growers Association, Wine Australia, NSW Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI), Charles Sturt University and Food Innovation Australia (FIAL) –commenced six months ago to address productivity and profitability challenges facing winegrape growers in warm inland grape regions.

“The NSW wine industry employs 53,000 people across NSW and currently the growers in our largest wine region centred around Griffith – which makes around 20 per cent of the volume of Australia’s wine – are struggling to remain profitable,” said NSW Wine Industry Association president Mark Bourne.

“Developing a new sustainable production model fit for the future, is essential not only for individual businesses, but for the regions and communities we live and work in.”

The WIPP project is exploring viticultural techniques and resources, business knowledge and skills, and technologies that will address current challenges and help develop future sustainable, productive, and resilient businesses.

The new winegrape trading platform, leveraging FIAL’s Australian Food & Beverage Catalogue, is being launched ahead of the 2023 vintage, with the aim to connect growers with uncontracted fruit to wineries seeking grapes. F

NEWS 12 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
South Australian dairy farmer Rick Gladigau has been re-elected as a director and President Australian Dairy Farmers. The new winegrape trading platform is being launched ahead of the 2023 vintage.

Mackay’s future economy set to dine out on Future Foods

The Queensland government has partnered with Cauldron, Asia-Pacific’s first large-scale precision fermentation manufacturing launchpad, to develop a business case for a world-leading Future Foods BioHub in Mackay.

Deputy premier and minister for state development Steven Miles said a future contract manufacturing facility will generate local jobs and play an important role in meeting global demand for food.

“The proposed fermented Future Foods contract manufacturing facility will provide the large-scale fermentation capacity needed by Future Foods fermentation companies to produce their products at scale,” said Miles.

“ We made a commitment at the last election to deliver a business case for a BioHub in the Mackay region. We are delivering on that commitment by funding up to $528,000 and partnering

with Cauldron to get it done.

“The proposed $300 million facility will provide the anchor infrastructure Queensland needs to catalyse a new commercial-scale industry, complement the region’s agricultural and manufacturing strengths, protect existing jobs in the sugar industry, diversify the local economy and create new local jobs.

“Queensland can be at the centre of meeting the global demand for food with our strong animal agriculture industries and the natural resources, talented workforce and government commitment to growing the Biofutures industry, which includes Future Foods.

“Nationally, CSIRO estimates the fermented Future Foods industry could produce close to $1.1 billion worth of retail products and up to 2,020 jobs by 2030.

Member for Mackay Julieanne Gilbert said the government was prioritising creating a Future Foods

BioHub in Mackay.

“Locally, the industry, including the Greater Whitsunday Alliance, have a long-term vision to manufacture bioproducts using the region’s unique strengths, such as its ample biomass feedstock and transport networks and port,” Gilbert said.

“With a Future Foods BioHub that enables this growth and supports the local vision, the Palaszczuk Government and Cauldron are looking to capture these benefits for Queensland.”

Cauldron founder and CEO Michelle Stansfield said she looked forward to working with the Queensland Government.

“Australia has a unique opportunity to become a regional powerhouse in precision fermentation and unlock future breakthroughs in science, technology, and medicine, in combination,” Ms Stansfield said.

“Working hand in hand with

regions like Mackay, we will be able to create new jobs and unlock future opportunities to create more food, fibre and feed for the world.

“We commend the Queensland Government for its commitment to help plan the future of our regional jobs, resources and capabilities.” F

www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 13
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Cauldron founder and CEO Michelle Stansfield said she looked forward to working with the Queensland Government

Australian Lamb announces new food service partnerships

Australian Lamb has announced a range of new food service partnerships to offer Australians more ways to come together over lamb this summer.

The partnerships will see mouthwatering new dishes, each celebrating lamb’s unique taste and versatility, hit the menus of some of Australia’s most iconic venues.

This includes a dedicated lamb pop-up in the MCG member’s lounge.

‘The Lamb Paddock’ celebrates

Melbourne’s Greek community and offers a 48-hour marinated Lamb Souvlaki, succulent Lamb Burger and sports-fan favourite Lamb Snack Pack. Non-members will be able to enjoy the new lamb dishes from all food outlets on-ground from January 2023 until the AFL Grand Final on 29th September. Also in Melbourne, chefs across restauranteur Chris Lucas’ venues have been preparing signature dishes for the month. Grill Americano heroes Australia’s finest produce with its simple,

delicious cooking, and will feature Abbacchio a Scottadito Grilled Lamb Cutlets, with Zucchini e Piselli from executive chef Douglas Kyte. Andrea Kok, head chef at Hawker Hall, adds Murtabak Malaysian Spicy Lamb Flatbread with Penang Curry Sauce to her menu.

Ben Cooper, executive chef at Chin Chin, has also developed a recipe for home-cooks looking to elevate their summer BBQs – Cumin Lamb Skewers with Smoked Eggplant Satay and Charred Lime.

A partnership with Pegasus Leisure will see its venues serve a range of dishes including rich Lamb Shank Pot Pies, served with the bone, whilst patrons at Hog’s Breath’s 36 pubs nationwide can choose from a delicious Lamb Rump, served with creamy mash and veggies, and a refreshing Lamb and Feta Salad.

Select ALH Group venues will celebrate lamb’s versatility with dishes including a Lamb Kofta and Fattoush Salad, fragrant Korean Lamb Ribs and succulent Vindaloo Lamb Burger. F

NEWS 14 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
A partnership with Pegasus Leisure will see its venues serve a range of dishes including rich Lamb Shank Pot Pies.

Taking up the challenges of food manufacturing

After finding success in the retail space, Costa Anastasiadis recently moved into the food manufacturing space and now makes gluten free products for the Australian market. Adam McCleery writes.

16 Food&Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au MEET THE MANUFACTURER
The Choices Food Group now specialise in wheat and gluten free baked goods.

Costa Anastasiadis gained a reputation as a successful entrepreneur after building up the Crust Pizza brand across Australia before selling the business for $41 million, before deciding to move into the manufacturing space himself.

“I am still in retail with about 30 stores around the and that is doing quite well. We sold Crust and started up another brand and off the back of that about four years ago I wanted to diversify my portfolio, so I bought a small food manufacturer out of Sydney,” he said.

The food manufacturing company Anastasiadis purchased was the Choices Food Group, which he runs from his newly built and speciality bakery facility on Sydney’s north shore - producing gluten-free baked goods which are now stocked in Woolworths, Coles and Aldi across the country.

He decided to enter the world of gluten-free food manufacturing after the experience of his own son having a wheat allergy - buying a pre-existing small family-owned business with the plans of a major transformation.

“My children have a wheat intolerance which has given me some valuable insight into this segment of the market,” he added.

Now the Choices Food Group only makes 100 per cent gluten and wheat free baked goods.

“There are very few dedicated gluten free manufacturing plants in the country I felt there was a real opportunity to deliver products without compromise and change the perception of gluten free baked goods which we are doing successfully,” said Anastasiadis.

There were other factors which gave Anastasiadis the added confidence to invest in food manufacturing.

“I didn’t want another bakery and was looking for a niche,” he said.

“Our research indicated dietary requirements were significant in the marketplace and we like the challenge around manufacturing products that are difficult to replicate, and to be honest, that barrier to entry was what was most interesting about the endeavour.”

Anastasiadis said after doing the due diligence it became apparent that the Choices Food Group presented the opportunity he was looking for.

“It was a small business, but we knew there was an opportunity to grow the

business, for example there was some intellectual property from within the business which we knew we could capitalise and improve on. I guess that is a big reason why we bought it,” he said.

The existing income stream and customer base for the company was another critical factor in the purchase of the Choices Food Group.

“Both of which we helped to grow

through marketing and other methods,” he added.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic the business has seen a huge turnaround in the past 6 months growing to 60 staff and securing contracts with national distributors, supermarkets, and multivenue food chains.

Anastasiadis said that despite the negative impact of the pandemic, there

was a small silver lining to come out of it in terms of onshore food manufacturing.

“There was a small silver lining there when some major retailers being caught out by the ability of foreign markets to produce products like ours, and the delays in shipping and costs associated with that,” he said.

“And what that has inadvertently stimulated the local manufacturing sector

www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 17 MEET THE MANUFACTURER
Costa Anastasiadis moved into the food manufacturing space by purchasing the Choices Food Group. Research had shown a huge demand for gluten and wheat free food options. The gluten and wheat free baked goods have already proven popular with retailers.

in some categories, and ours is definitely one of them.

“We’ve proven that we can be as efficient on pricing and more reliable than some of our international counterparts, that was a small silver lining by coming front of mind again as retailers started to explore locally made products again.”

The last four years of being directly involved in the food manufacturing industry has taught Anastasiadis a string of valuable lessons which have helped the company continue to grow with success.

Things like how to correctly cost products is something Anastasiadis said was imperative to the growth of the company, making getting it right critical.

“You have to first learn about all of the moving parts in the manufacturing industry, there are a lot,” he said.

“Some are more obvious than others, like the capacity of your facility, your

people, and your machinery. How to cost products correctly, which is imperative and can be your undoing if you get it wrong.

“And another imperative is how you plan to scale for future growth.”

Anastasiadis said learning the balancing acts associated with food production was more of a ‘good faith’ proposition in the early days.

“I’s a fine balancing act between investing for the future and the people when you haven’t won the work, but you know you need to,” he said.

“Investing in systems like food accreditations, whether it is HACCP, SQF or something more than that, and all before you’ve won the work.

“It’s always a challenge because you must go in good faith and belief that you will win the work, so you find yourself spending hundreds of thousands of

dollars on things like accreditation.

“It has been a steep learning curve in four years and it’s certainly not for the faint hearted.”

Adding to the difficult learning curve, and despite the silver linings that could be found, the Choices Food Group still took a hard hit during the pandemic and at the worst time possible.

“We bought the company and then build and opened our brand-new facility near the end of 2019,” said Anastasiadis.

“And by March of 2020 some of our revenue channels fell off a cliff, literally stopped in their tracks. Particularly in the service industry, hotels, and airlines. That was hard.”

Due to this, the support shown to the food manufacturing industry prior to, during, and after the pandemic has been invaluable to the industry, Anastasiadis said.

“There’s certainly a lot more support in the sector around investment and government grants around initiatives for reducing carbon footprints, for example.”

Another tool Anastasiadis and Choices Food Group has employed in the

last four years is to ensure a diversification of revenue streams.

“The biggest challenge is balancing up your ratio of customers and making sure you don’t have too many eggs in one basket,” said Anastasiadis.

“National distribution is great, but it can be risky if you have one product with one national distributor making up 90 per cent of your revenue. That can be tricky.

“It bumps you up and gives you great earning capacity from a revenue perspective, but you don’t want to fall into the trap of becoming too reliant on one or two key partners.”

The company strategy has been built on this principal and will continue as the model going forward.

“Our strategy has been broad, we have a food service brand, our own label, we contract manufacture for other brands within national retailers.

“We also label for other retailers. For us having our revenue stream spread out across various sub sectors is the safest way to maintain growth moving forward.

“We will never put all our eggs in one basket.” F

18 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au MEET THE MANUFACTURER
Since the takeover four years ago the Choices Food Group opened a new facility in NSW. The new Choices Food Group factory has been built with growth in mind. Anastasiadis said it was important to invest in the right people and the right processes.
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Avoid common building mistakes and the costs that come with them

Tony Tate and Rob Blythman, from Total Construction, know first-hand the pitfalls to avoid

when building a new food and beverage manufacturing facility. Adam McCleery writes.

According to research from the CSIRO, the Australian food and beverage sector is expected to grow from $23 billion in 2019 to as much as $25 billion by 2030, combined with a growing demand for locally manufacturer products, many companies are looking to expand now.

Capitalising on the expected growth of the Australian food and beverage industry during a peak growth period means ensuring the right choices are made in order to meet emerging, and existing, market demands.

Rob Blythman, GM Engineering Construction Group at Total Construction, and Tony Tate, general manager at Total Construction, along with their expert staff, have seen first-

hand the common mistakes being made by companied looking to expand or rebuild.

T here’s a laundry list of pitfalls to avoid when beginning a new construction project, especially when working in the food and beverage industry, so it’s critical to find the right construction company to partner with.

Both Blythman and Tate highlight the importance of making the right decisions as early in the planning stages as possible to avoid costly mistakes in the future.

“We have a team of experts who know exactly what is required in terms of building for the food and beverage industry,” said Blythman.

“There are things that people may

not think about during the building process and it’s too late once the building is done to worry about changes in operations, how cleaning down walls and floors, the volume of water coming out. All those things come into play.

“I think another one of the most common mistakes is not future proofing the build. For example, lots of clients will build small rooms when a larger space that can segmented as needed is a better, and more affordable option.”

It’s not enough to build a facility for the now, a stakeholder must also consider the future to make sure the new site can meet any potential growth in the future, or critical changes to manufacturing practices off the back of

new innovations.

The use of Hobbs on the facility floor is a good example of this.

Hobbs are used in the facility to protect the sandwich panel from getting damaged.

T he downside of Hobbs is that they are difficult to alter in a timely manner to cater to a new piece of equipment or layout alteration necessary to allow new food products to be produced.

Things like this and small rooms creates a lack of flexibility, and flexibility is key.”

The choice of chilling rooms is another area where making the right decision at the outset will pay dividends going forward, while also creating more flexibility to meet market demands.

CONSTRUCTION 20 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
Avoiding the common pitfalls associated with building a new facility can save a company time and money.

“For example, instead of having small individual cold-stores for dairy, meat, and and, instead have one large cold-store,” said Tate.

“That way you can segregate with shelving so that, for example, during summer when you might sell more chicken products and need more storage space, you alter the shelving to meet the demand inside the one chiller.”

Tate said the food and beverage industry has a number of regulations which must be met for a company to operate but if some decisions aren’t addressed prior to building then meeting these regulations can become increasingly difficult, and costly.

Fall to drains presents a good case study on how regulations around food safety can sometimes be overlooked, which again is costly in the long run.

“Not having a fall to drain tends to be because of the ease of moving equipment around from OHS requirements,” said Tate.

“The food code states there shall be no pooling of water, creating the need for falls to drains.”

By not building to specific codes, a manufacturer runs the risk of non-compliance and the costs associated with rectifying the issues.

Essentially falling prey to common pitfalls, like some listed above but of which there are many more, will cost a

company dearly, from the loss of output during the upgrade periods or the loss of stock due to food safety regulations.

The possible pitfalls awaiting

companies can be easily averted with the right partnership.

Blythman said Total Construction’s dedicated team was made up of people

with expertise across the food and building industries, ensuring specialist solutions that help avert common pitfalls. F

CONSTRUCTION www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 21
Finding the right constractors with expert knowledge in food facility construction is a critical factor when planning a new build.

PurPak: Here to make big waves in the VFFS and HFFS Australian market for 2023

As the food industry continues to evolve rapidly, it is essential that businesses keep up with cutting-edge technology. One way they can do this is by investing in a reliable form, fill, seal (VFFS and HFFS) packaging machines. PurPak’s open frame design, ground up planning and build, right through to its focus on making VFFS machines that are specifically designed for high care food manufacturing, PurPak looks set for a bright future here in Australia.

PurPak was founded 8 years ago, but its roots in the VFFS industry run much deeper. The minds behind PurPak and their machines have decades of experience working in this arena with a shared vision for success - giving customers an unbeatable team to trust when taking on new ventures.

The company behind bringing this innovation to the Australian Market is Select Equip, one of Australia’s leading food packaging companies with big name customers such as Heinz, Lite N Easy, McCain Foods, Hilton Food Group just to name a few putting their trust with Select.

James White, sales and marketing manager at Select Equip stated that “we want to provide our customers the most reliable, cutting-edge suppliers in the marketplace today. The moment I understood what PurPak could provide, not only for our current customers, but those needing VFFS and HFFS solutions, we knew we couldn’t pass up the chance to bring

MACHINERY 22 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
Technology in the food and beverage manufacturing industry continues to evolve quickly, making it important to keep up with new innovations. Food & Beverage Industry News reports.
Those needing VFFS and HFFS solutions need look no further than PurPak.

PurPak to Australia” And with that, the experience and knowledge of what quality, reliability and support our Australian Food Manufacturer’s need in today’s production settings.

PurPak are here to make big waves in the industry with their unique designs, modern systems, top of the line customer service through Select Equip, and all without breaking your budget.

They have taken their expertise and years of experience understanding of the VFFS machines and markets to design a new clean sheet machine and concept from the ground up, utilising open frame design with simple mechanics and modern non-proprietary electrical components i.e. PLC, Servo Motors / Drives and HMI.

All Packaged together with the Advanced Industry 4.0 engineering offering; Smart, Connected, Actionable data plus OEE historic and improvement analysis plus Preventative Maintenance Alerts / Reporting.

Craig Lindsell Flexible Packaging Systems business development manager at Select Equip said “For many years in the past, open frame machine was always a goal but never eventuated, here we have a company that put Open Frame Hygienic design first on the list when designing the machine on the blank sheet of paper. “

No matter how good the machine is, maintenance or repairs will have to be done at some stage in the machines life. Closed frame machines are really difficult to work on, basically everything is in a box of steel. Which is compounded if the electrical cabinet is firmly attached to one side. So, if you need to access mechanics or motors on the far side of the access door you have to be Houdini to perform the simplest maintenance or repairs. Purpak’s open frame machine allows you to literally get inside the machine with easy access to all components.

Mr Lindsell stated “If I had a dollar for the number of times, I was asked is your machine IP rated. I’m proud to say that Purpak Edge and Edge HV are IP65 as standard (Optional IP66), so I think we have that covered with Purpak. This is next level High Care Compliant Vertical Form Fill Seal.”

Not only that, Mr Lindsell stated “there are the small things like the optional use of RFID identification both for operators / supervisors, but also things like forming tube assemblies, feeding back to the preset

of the machine to minimise chances of errors in set up.”

All manual positions required for set up with gauges, saved in HMI for operator prompting and acknowledgement. Again, this is lacking in some of the existing machines in the market and is extremely simple and cheap to do from a manufactures point of view but overlook by some that make PurPak a standout.”

Sometimes it’s the simple things that catch you eye but are also missed like the optional barcode scanner at

the rear of the machine for scanning the roll of the film allowing barcode driven set up for presets.

Mr Lindsell stated “I don’t know how many times I have straddled the takeaway conveyor to change a forming tube. Again it’s the simple things” Purpak pivot the forming tube support to allow the forming tube to be removed while standing to the side of the conveyor or utilising a trolley without removing the take away conveyor.

Select Equip has not only brought PurPak VFFS and HFFS

machinery that has been designed with simplicity and strength at its core - ensuring a consistently robust, efficient and reliable drive system for your business, but a whole dedicated national company, service and spares department dedicated to maintaining and growing businesses as their partner. No outsourcing service the 3rd party contractors, no offshore support just local resources to help you the moment you need it.

Select Equip and PurPak, we are sure you will be hearing a lot more of them in 2023! F

MACHINERY www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 23
Select Equip has brought PurPak VFFS and HFFS machinery to the Australian market.

Boost your brand image with environmentally friendly packaging

As 2025 sustainability and efficiency targets get ever closer, the move towards sustainable packaging continues to intensify with companies like Favourite Packaging helping to innovate new and recyclable packaging.

One of the largest challenges for recyclable food packaging centres around the shelf life of the product, where traditionally non-recyclable PET layering provides the standard protection needed.

Favourite Packaging, a company that specialises in food, pet food, and industrial packaging, recently released new recyclable packaging options which managing director Justin Yates said

finally provides equivalent protection.

“We started the company in the 1980s and we have been both a manufacturer and importer of flexible packaging products ever since,” said Yates.

Favourite Packaging’s recyclable packaging products promise product integrity, longevity, quality, and a bold look that stands out on a shelf.

“But anything that needs a shelf-life with a good oxygen barrier is usually a laminated product that contains PET.”

“We also have a new innovative line of pallet stretch wrap that reduces the amount of plastic being used on every pallet. We also have a version that is made from recycled content.

“We are aiming to try and move whatever isn’t already classified as recyclable into that area.”

Knowing that packaging requirements would undergo continued changes, the team at Favourite Packaging continued to innovate to future proof its industry offerings.

“To find materials that are mono structured and easily recyclable while also performing as well or better has been a big process. As the push to 2025 comes that has become better, in the last two years and after lots of work we have got something that is equivalent to a PET barrier and recyclable.”

The push towards more recyclable

packaging has also been driven by the end user, in this case food manufacturers, and consumers.

“It has been a bit of a pull effect with end users now wanting this material. It has forced manufacturers to really ramp up their research and development,” said Yates.

“Now that there is such a call for it there’s a lot of money going into research and trialling these new materials, and without the national targets it might have stumbled along for a long time.”

Yates’ comments are also founded on research which shows that significant portions of consumers are making purchasing decisions based on ethical and

PACKAGING 24 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
Favourite Packaging has released recyclable packaging without PET layering which owners says provides equivalent protection to traditional packaging. Adam McCleery writes.
Favourite Packaging has released a new line of recylable packaging without the use of PET.

environmentally friendly packaging.

Favourite Packaging has had to keep up with the changing demands of consumers and end users to remain successful, and its six-step packaging solution process perfectly adapts to changes in the market.

Because each packaging solution is unique to each user, Favourite Packaging ensure a close working partnership with clients to bring the best suited solution.

An excellent example of this is the company’s recyclable pouches, which are a key area of focus for Favourite Packaging.

For a pouch to be considered recyclable it must be produced using an approved single material structure, a mono type of plastic. Consumers can discard these pouches through recycling, where they can be collected and enter a waste management flow to be reborn as raw material for a different application, thus contributing to the circular economy. By changing to these recyclable pouches, the carbon footprint of your package can be reduced around 60 per cent.

Favourite Packaging has the capacity to customise the recyclable pouch into all styles, including stand up and flat bottom

and also offer both regular and high barrier versions.

The pouches are a clear example of how an end user can have a packaging product which is recyclable, durable, and resealable. All of which are recognised as environmentally responsible while meeting the rising demands of end users and consumers.

The company’s line of pallet stretch wrap is another example of Favourite Packaging meeting the growing demands of the market in critical ways.

The Nano33 Stretch Wrap compiles 33 thin layers which are also tough enough to last. It has excellent structure and tearing resistance similar to the likes of a “plywood effect’. With Nano33, less film is needed to secure a load properly and so the amount of plastic and packaging costs are significantly lowered.

“The 33 layers create a lamination of sorts. A standard stretch film might be 20-23 micron thick to wrap a pallet and keep the load safe,” said Yates.

“With a Nano33 it can come down to 12 or 15 micron and keep, or exceed, what the 20-23-micron material is doing.”

And like the pouches, research has also proven the reduction in

environmental impact.

“When you do the analysis on how much film is used on each pallet, you can reduce it by 30 per cent in some cases,” said Yates.

“Furthermore, if you use the Nano Green, it has 30 per cent recycled content within the material. It’s a combination of less plastic and the plastic there is already recycled material.”

It’s in this area where manufacturers and end users could easily reduce plastic consumption, Yates added.

“The Nano range is an easy solution for anyone looking at finding a way to reduce their plastic consumption throughout their production,” he said.

“If they are using 100 tonnes of plastic on pallets each year, then you can get an easy 30 per cent reduction on that material with this solution. Which will have a big impact.

“I expect a lot of enquiries next year around reducing plastic usage from the market.”

Yates said the company also anticipates an even greater focus on recyclable plastics throughout 2023.

“I think we’ll see a lot of improvement in that area next year,” he said.

“In the last 12 months a few things have started happening which will change recycling in Australia, following Europe’s lead.”

Yates also said that the timing for the changes was aligning well with emerging technologies.

“The good thing is that now that technology and know-how are in place to achieve these goals,” he said.

But until then, Yates said the team at Favourite Packaging were aware that each customer will have its own time frame to reach new recyclability goals.

Providing traditional packaging alongside cutting-edge recyclable packaging is still important for the wider industry, because no two customers will have the same desires within the same time frames.

“It is very important; some customers may be happy to use whatever is cheapest right up until they must change,” said Yates.

“ Whereas more and more customers want to be out in front of the game.

“We have to cater to each customer and where they are in the process and how they want to be perceived through the packaging they use.” F

PACKAGING www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 25
After countless hours of work and research the company came up with a product with equivalent protection to PET layered packaging.

At the heart of the brewer’s art

One of the latest offerings to the Australian food and beverage industry from Continental, experts in rubber and fluid transfer, presents some new features which have already proven to benefit brewers especially.

Continental’s Purple Snake is a highquality hose which can be used across the brewing, beverage, and liquor industry sectors.

Continental’s national business manager, Scott Weston, told Food & Beverage Industry News that the Purple Snake hose was developed after years of feedback and research in the market.

“This has been developed in Germany for the European market and exceeds all known standards for the food and beverage industry,” said Weston.

“It’s the highest performing product we offer in this range because of how it was developed and how it’s been tested over a long period over time.”

After its success with large and smaller breweries across Europe, Continental decided it was the right time to launch the product to the Australian market.

The new hose provides added flexibility because of the absence of added stainless steel within the hose itself, with the inner lining being composed of a special elastomer. On top of this feature is the hose’s absolute neutrality to taste and odour.

“The neutrality to taste is very important, it doesn’t give off odour, the temperature range is great, and the product is easy for CIP procedures,” added Weston.

These features make the fluid transfer hose a perfect solution for beverage manufacturers.

The product also high performance while simultaneously being non-porous.

Synthetic fibres within the inner layers of the hose also help to provide greater flexibility and protection, in turn, extending the life cycle of the product.

The hose cover is also composed of a special red elastomer, with fabric patterns underneath. The outside is abrasion, ooze, weather, and UV resistant.

a three-year warranty, something not seen in other products of its type.

“The three-year warranty on this product is something no one else does in the fluid transfer game. You can really see the benefits and we believe it will exceed anyone’s expectations,” said Weston.

“The inner tube is perfectly smooth and ensures the purity of the hose required by the brewer,” said Continental

brewing plants produce around 40 specialty beers and mixed beers as well as soft drinks – for the domestic market and worldwide export.

At OeTTINGER’s highly automated manufacturing facilities, special-purpose hoses such as the “Purple Snake” and the “Aquapal” from Continental play an important role in food safety.

The technology company supplies not only hoses, but also complete lines with crimped fittings. These complete solutions are particularly hygienic because both components fit seamlessly into one another; there is almost no place for germs to hide and turbulence is almost completely ruled out.

The fixed, hygienically flawless connection between the rubber tubing and the fitting can withstand pressures of up to 16 bar with triple safety.

Of particular importance for use in the food industry is the fact that the smooth inner liner of Continental hoses, referred to as the soul of the hose, is absolutely odourless and taste neutral.

In terms of the pressure rating, the hose work sup to pressures of 16 bar, or 231 psi. And for temperature resistance the Purple Snake has a resistance from -30C to +90C for a maximum of 60 minutes.

T he newly developed hose lining conforms to foodstuffs regulations and in terms of breweries, its smooth flow capability is ideal. The smooth flow means transferring liquids, especially beer, does not create any frothing issues.

Demonstrating the company’s confidence in the product, it comes with

sales representative Stephen Renze.

The OeTTINGER brewery, in Bayern, Germany, is an ideal case study for the successful use of Continental fluid transfer hoses, particularly the Purple Snake.

According to research, the average per capita rate of beer consumption in Germany is more than 66 gallons annually, making it a lucrative market which is always looking to improve production and output.

Of this, the Oettingen, Gotha, Mönchengladbach and Braunschweig

Sven Willim, deputy production manager at the OeTTINGER Brewery in Möchengladbach, confirms the properties of Continental’s food hoses produced in Korbach in the German state Hesse.

“Our employees can give the hoses a lot of punishment, laying lines spontaneously and sometimes dragging them over the floor without causing them to twist or get damaged,” he said.

In some cases, Continental hoses are used for up to ten years – without compromising on quality.

“This is confirmed time and again by regular microbiological samples of liquids and hose tests by independent organizations,” added Willim. F

FLUID TRANSFER 26 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
Continental’s Purple Snake industrial hose has proven to be a hit with beverage manufacturers, particularly those in the brewing sector. Adam McCleery writes.
Continetal’s Purple Snake hose has proven to be a great asset for brewers.

D EF INING THE NEX T

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From pharma to food, cosmetics to chemicals, Fluid Air delivers big ideas that help you preserve active ingredients, accelerate production, and reduce waste—all with cost efficiency in mind.

Our innovative PolarDry® technology utilises milder temperatures to produce powders, leading to large efficiency gains for your business.

Electrostatic spray drying is a low-temperature drying technique that combines dual-fluid atomisation and electrostatic charge in a single-step process for conversion of liquid feed into powder.

Fluid Air has the range to suit the size and needs of your business with machines tailored for R&D, feasibility studies, as well as small, medium, and large-scale commercial manufacturing.

For enquiries, contact us at mark.condro@spray.com.au

Phone 1300 079 998

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Helping companies meet industry and consumer expectations

The impact of the changing demands of consumers around the environmental effects of what they consume continues to grow and from it trust is quickly becoming a new currency in the food and beverage industry.

Consumers continue to be more mindful of the brands they consume based upon many environmental factors, from recyclability to carbon footprint, and general food safety.

From food safety to product quality elements like taste, texture, and packaging, to regulatory compliance, food and beverage market leaders are partnering with Veeva Systems to help meet unprecedented supply chain disruptions. As well as bring consistently safe, trusted, and more sustainable products to market faster—all while reducing risk across the compliance spectrum.

Veeva’s history of working in adjacent industries like Life Sciences and CPG has resulted in a proven, unified platform that helps to drive consumer trust and innovation through a single source of truth and a frictionless exchange of information.

T his is enabling food and beverage leaders to advance reputations among consumers, customers, suppliers, employees, and governments. The positive impact of becoming an increasingly trusted brand will also help raise the industry bar.

On top of this, Veeva helps clients create better business outcomes by making trust core to their digital transformation strategies and building on a holistic, proactive approach that lets you expand outward with confidence and agility. Both are important factors in the ever-changing food and beverage landscape.

Working with Veeva Systems can also help food and beverage companies gain and maintain a competitive lead in the industry through the company’s commitment to continuous innovation and by shifting market share in your favour, with the ability to respond to

industry trends and consumer behaviours faster.

Digitalisation and cloud computing continue to have an immense impact on the future of the food and beverage industry and are increasingly important in the journey towards better supply chains and more sustainable practices.

Drive Better Business Outcomes with Veeva

Veeva works with clients to help them be more agile in the face of changing food and beverage market trends, while bringing consistently safer, trusted, and high-quality products to market.

To do this, the team at Veeva employ a range of approaches, some of which are detailed below.

• Make food safety and regulatory compliance a cornerstone of your digital transformation strategy, building trust throughout the product cycle and across the compliance spectrum. Veeva’s solutions eliminate friction in end-toend execution and accelerate speed

to market.

• Adopting a holistic, preventative approach to food safety and regulatory compliance (instead of a reactive, fragmented one) means less time focusing on patching problems and reacting to recalls, and more time focusing on customers and business opportunities.

• By utilising the best tools and systems in the business, achieve a new posture of preparedness and future-proof your business for when opportunity comes— or crisis hits.

• Reap the benefits of operating on an industry-focused, pure multi-tenant SaaS platform—the most modern technology available.

• E stablishing traceability and visibility in the value chain through a single source of truth and a proven cloud platform opens up new opportunities for innovation and testing with co-manufacturing entities.

• Up level how you turn product innovation into value with the ability to

easily validate or substantiate packaging and marketing claims.

• B enefit from Veeva’s deep expertise co-innovating with the largest, mostrespected organizations in the world— in the most highly regulated industries like CPG and Life Sciences—and building new capabilities into solutions that help to move your whole industry forward.

• Grow confidence and reassurance as you gain connectivity and traceability across the food and beverage stack, allowing you to move faster, increase accuracy, and drive real-time responsiveness so you can focus on what you do best.

The expectations of end users, manufacturers, and consumers has changed and will continue to change into the future. As a result, having a cloud-based solution which can help track a range of important area, such as regulatory requirements, and quality, at a cutting-edge level is paramount for growth. F

DIGITAL SOLUTIONS 28 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
Veeva Systems provides the food and beverage industry with cloud-based data, software, and service solutions which cater to unique operating requirements. Food & Beverage Industry News reports.
Veeva Systems has a strong reputation of helping clients solve supply chain disruptions.
internationalcoffeeexpo@primecreative.com.au Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre www.internationalcoffeeexpo.com Melbourne International Coffee Expo 2023 17—19 August 2023 CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF EVERYTHING COFFEE Celebrating 10 years of packaging technology

Manufacturers who work on scalable application are well-aware that PLCs for automation and control are critical. The PLC systems need to be flexible, reliable and include strong security feature when connecting to Industry 4.0 enterprises.

To stay competitive, OEMs and plant operators need a controller that keeps pace with the increase in customer requirements, functional complexity, and time-to-market demands.

In the process of looking to replace end-of-life PLCs with more advanced and modern alternatives, six critical elements need to be considered.

These elements are around design, integrated safety and security, efficient and integrated technology, integrated diagnostics and maintenance, industrial IoT connectivity, and responsive global support.

T he Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200, stocked and distributed in Australia by

The right PLC solution has massive impact

APS Industrial, is one such PLC.

The SIMATIC S7-1200 offers all six of the above criteria, critically important to APS, when developing the newest evolution of the technology.

SIMATIC S7-1200 controllers are an ideal choice when it comes to flexibly and efficiently performing automation tasks in the lower to medium performance range.

Features include a comprehensive range of technological functions, integrated communication, as well as an especially compact and space-saving design.

The scalable SIMATIC S7-1200 controllers have integrated inputs and outputs, along with communication options, and are modularly expandable.

With integrated technologies such as high-speed counters, pulse width modulation, pulse sequence outputs, speed control and positioning, SIMATIC S7-1200 controllers are suitable for temperature control, pump

and fan control, convey or technology, and even packaging machines.

OEMs and operators should consider basic PLCs, that are compact and modular, with plug-and-play interoperability across multiple devices. Additionally, the PLC selected should have the flexibility to expand using plug-in signal modules that can simplify wiring and servicing tasks.

Steven Sischy, APS Industrial’s Automation and Drives Business Development Manager, reported that it was understandable that some plant owners might be hesitant to upgrade existing operational technology, resulting in falling behind the competition.

Advanced automation and control technology offers higher throughput rates, simplified and more visible operations, reduced maintenance and repair costs, and accelerated times to market.

I n short, a delay would result

in decreased industry performance benchmarks and being behind the competition.

Sischy states that the APS and Siemens offerings help stakeholders looking to upgrade PLC solutions, and to those feeling somewhat hesitant, realise the benefits.

“We have two technologies, an IT network and an OT network, bridging the two” he said.

“Due to secure technologies, within the background, it prevents us speaking to the IT company or the IT infrastructure people and providing that connectivity and integration of networks.

“If you look at cloud connectivity using AWS or MindSphere, also using underlying technologies which fundamentally is a secure technology means we can connect anywhere, remotely, anywhere in the world.”

Remote connectivity presents a host of advantages for the user, previously

30 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au AUTOMATION
Consumer demands are putting extra pressure on manufacturers to respond with mass customisation, increasingly higher throughputs to expand output. Adam McCleery writes.
The SIMATIC S7-1200 offers critically important criteria including integrated diagnostics.

unavailable, particularly around skills shortages.

“If you look at it, especially in the Australian market, we are struggling to find people, with these skill sets” he said.

“Working remotely means updates and configuration changes can be done and new firmware can be deployed. If there is a stoppage for any reason, an email or SMS can be sent and effectively the production efficiency will improve with minimised downtime.”

Concerns around security of remote technology such as this is also addressed, with the core DNA of Siemens’ PLC solutions security enabled.

“We create a secure connection between the device and limit who can have access,” said Sischy.

“If you have an operator panel connected to this, we can limit what the operator can do, or give full access. That’s depending on how you configure the Totally Integrated Automation.”

“Siemens look at expandability and depending on which CPU you have, there are also expansion capabilities with additional safety modules as we need them.”

There are also extended communication modules, the product has integrated switches which APS can add onto the device. If you want remote connectivity, a 4G or LTE connection for the device, can be used.

It is completely scalable and open to the architecture, so you aren’t limited.

“These are usually expected in large CPUs but now they are moving into compact CPUs. Around the world Siemens is a leader in this field” Sischy added.

“ When you get into the extended temperature range, it is further enhanced.”

The PLC solution also provides methods to monitor and reduce energy consumption, which is becoming increasingly important as new sustainability and efficiency targets get closer.

“If the machine is not in use, it can go into standby mode, limiting its energy consumption,” said Sischy.

“We also have an energy measurement module that leads into your energy efficiency software, monitoring the current peak demand and seeing if we meet it. Minimising overshoots also reduces energy use.”

Digitisation and sustainability continue to be key areas of focus for both companies.

“Along with curving greenhouse emissions, sustainable supply chain is a very big part of this. Remote maintenance is a massive point with this product too. All energy management rolls into it,” said Sischy.

“We have been working very hard to

get supply and demand back to normal.”

Sischy said that despite supply chain issues delivery times were improving. APS already has this Siemens product in stock, resulting in both the company and their customers being in a strong position.

A f urther benefit of the increased remote connectivity centres around firmware updates can result in a new feature being deployed down the line” said Sischy.

“Energy switch is an example and there is the opportunity to upgrade to new firmware.

“Anything that gets added on in a firmware update can be automatically upgraded in the device.”

Sischy said despite the protections, put in place, it was still up to the operator to ensure they enabled the security features correctly.

“People need to be mindful not to disable any of the security features. Siemens regularly monitors and continuously looks at improving security “he said.

Overall, Sischy said, the advantages of this PLC solutions from Siemens were many, benefiting every aspect of the process, reducing energy consumption, and downtime. In addition, it gives up to date data.

“I think going forward the CEO doesn’t want to know the breakdown,

but they want know efficiency, revenue, output and so forth. Dashboard connectivity provides that,” said Sischy.

Today’s manufacturing transformation is being driven, by consumer-centric market forces and powerful technologies, that are also defining the new landscape of globalization that manufacturers must compete in.

To support the highly connected global manufacturing supply chains that feed consumer demands, OEMs and plant operators should give serious consideration to the new generation of PLCs and automation, to keep pace with the increase in customer requirements, functional complexity, and time-to-market demands that have emerged as a result.

The good news is that upgrading automation and control systems can be done with little to no production disruptions, and many plant operators will find these upgrades pay for themselves within a very short time. TIA programming software includes PLCSim which gives the user the ability to fully test the application before it is deployed in the field and further reduce commissioning time onsite.

“Siemens is a brand synonymous with quality, and we at APS are proud to announce, the S7-1200, comes with three years manufacturer’s warranty.” F

www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 31 AUTOMATION
The SIMATIC S7-1200 also addresses concerns around the secuirty of remote technology.

Pantone Colour of the Year inspires new product launch opportunities

Oterra brings alive the new Pantone Colour of the Year in its latest offering for natural colours. Food and Beverage Industry News reports.

Oterra is a globally leading supplier of natural colours with an extensive portfolio and a mission statement from company CEO, Odd Erik Hansen, details Oterra’s mission to ‘making natural food and beverage easy for a healthy and sustainable world’.

“Our employees and customers expect us to be the industry leader when it comes to sustainability – and as a natural colours company that believes nature got it right – it makes perfect sense that we lead the colour industry in finding the best ways to adopt sustainable practices for the future,” said Hansen.

Oterra is a key supplier of natural colours to most of the world’s largest food and beverage manufacturers.

In December of 2022 the company announced its new capacity able to offer an even broader range of violet shades from black carrot. This recent achievement enables a perfect natural colour match with new Pantone Colour of the Year ‘Viva Magenta’ across food and beverage applications.

The Pantone Colour of the Year, announced on December 1, 2022, has ties to natural colours, as Leatrice Eiseman, executive director for the Pantone Colour Institute, explains.

“In this age of technology, we look to draw inspiration from nature and what is real,” said Eiseman.

“PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta descends from the red family and has inspired the red of cochineal, one of the most widely used dyes belonging to the red dye family as well as one of the strongest and brightest the world has known.”

“Rooted in the primordial, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta reconnects us to original matter. Invoking the forces of nature, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta

galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength.”

Violet shades in natural colour

Oterra’s latest offering in achieving violet shades brings new capabilities for its customers, Rene Fonteijn, industry business manager, Oterra explained.

“This is a culmination of hard work from the entire team at Oterra, from research and development to production,” said Fonteijn.

“Our new violet carrot solutions ensure the perfect shade match for Viva Magenta, empowering our customers to achieve shades previously not possible with natural colours in an application.”

Violet diversity

Black carrot is used in many applications, primarily beverage, dairy, confectionery, and fruit prep.

The pigment – anthocyanin – has global regulatory approval as either colouring foods/minimally processed, or natural colour.

It is also free from limitations due to dietary restrictions and is one of the most popular and widely used sources for natural colours around the globe –making black carrot a simple, accessible choice when converting from artificial

to natural colours.

More than this, Oterra’s product offers great stability and is available in both powder and liquid formats.

This enables easy switching between powder and liquid as required, without the need of reformulating an existing recipe.

It can provide a range of shades from beautiful light pink to violet, dark red, and burgundy. The high levels of stability and diversity in both application and shade make it a vital element of any natural colour portfolio,” said Fonteijn.

“Our new violet carrot solutions can ensure the perfect shade match for Viva Magenta – empowering our customers to achieve shades that were previously not possible with natural colours in application.”

From Magenta to Red – Oterra has all your colour shade requirements covered.

Supporting Black Carrot is the recently launched FruitMax® Red 116 WS.

FruitMax® Red 116 WS is specifically developed to overcome the colour hurdles that beverage manufacturers face. It provides a bright fire-engine red shade, to perfectly

match the most common red fruits. It can even fuel product developers’ creativity as its bright red shade can be used to create and convey emotions beyond the traditional flavour profiles it supports.

FruitMax® 116 WS is specifically designed to support the complexities of the beverage industry, including fortification, high water-activity, carbonization, and flavours, all of which often create challenges for product developers in terms of colour stability when using anthocyanins. Additionally, getting the right shade of red was problematic as most manufacturers use black carrot, and the shade turns too pinkish, when used in low dosages.

Best of all it can do all this even at low dosages, and its improved stability against fortification means that the product is perfect for transparent beverages like vitamin drinks, near waters and energy drinks – all of which are traditionally known for their destabilizing properties when created using traditional sources of anthocyanins.

FruitMax® Red 116 WS is also the perfect natural alternative to RED40 or Allura-Red for those manufacturers looking to convert from artificial colours.

Black carrot and FruitMax Red 116 WS are just two examples of the many leading natural colour options of the Oterra natural colour portfolio.

Oterra’s extensive range of products means the company can help Australian manufacturers with unique and customised solutions. With a colour laboratory based right here in Australia, Oterra can support manufacturers with colour formulation, shelf stability testing and New Product Development. A valuable resource for the local market. F

COLOURING 32 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
Oterra is a key supplier of natural colours to several major markets.

A simple solution that can help reduce product recalls

Earlee Products, an Australian owned ingredients supplier and research and development company, continues to provide the food and beverage industry with cutting edge innovations. Adam

Food safety is one of the most important factors for food and beverage manufacturers. Especially for those with products more susceptible than others to bacteria growth.

Food waste alone constitutes a large portion of landfill in Australia, with many factors being the cause, as a result, food safety is considered a key area of focus in reducing this number,

particularly with renewed focus on a circular economy and more efficient manufacturing.

With this in mind, any new innovation that promises better control or protection against the threat of bacteria during and after the manufacturing process is an important one for the industry.

Flav®Fresh, part of the EarleeǀControl

range from Earlee Products, is one such innovation.

1. T he product is a safe and clean label dipping solution which provides protection , helping combat product recalls by increasing protection against bacterial growth. The natural anti-bacterial surface protector helps to maintain food integrity and safety while also extending the shelf life of a product, proving very effective against Listeria Monocytogenes, Staph. Aureus, and E.Coli, all of which can wreak havoc on the industry and cause massive issues for brand loyalty and recognition.

Combined with these features is the product’s capacity to enhance the flavour, taste, and texture of food stuffs. And it only has an application rate of 0.3 per cent to 0.5 per cent, making it a costeffective solution that can last longer than some alternatives.

emerging trends.”

The Earlee Control Range has also proven to smooth peak production periods, as demonstrated during its initial use in the ham manufacturing sector, before quickly following suit across other food sectors.

“We work with clients, SME’s and large companies, to help find and develop solutions for a range of different sectors and products, from meat to fruit and vegetables and seafood,” said Lea Reid, Earlee Products’ R&D manager.

“The solutions cross sectors combined with the diverse expertise of our team helps us to share a wide spectrum of knowledge to help various businesses.”

A key feature of Flav®fresh is its natural infusion of citrus extracts and vinegar which helps to prevent any strong odours or flavours. These active ingredients, create ‘Hurdles’ that kill

Earlee|Control was initially developed as a solution for extending the shelf life of ham, but as Earlee Products CEO Brett McMullen said, many innovations are developed in such a way, before being used in multiple applications.

“There are also new packaging formats as people move towards convenience foods, they want them ready packed and ready to eat,” he said.

“Vacuum and gas flush packaging of these Ready To Eat protein foods are more prevalent however neither chilling or lack of oxygen stop listeria growing.”

“You can’t see it, you can’t taste it, so you need a new solution and sometimes they are old solutions but applied in a new way. This is one method we use to ensure we have offerings for current and

bacteria in the formula and provide strong protection.

Interestingly, these components also have a secondary use of preventing yeasts and moulds.

Earlee|Control is also a great solution for helping extend shelf life by allowing the packaged product to last longer against the onset of any harmful bacteria, which in turn creates less risk around products going out of date before being sold.

The extension of shelf life also applies to those foods which change colour and look less appealing to customers but are still good for selling and eating. The natural bioflavonoids and polyphenols in Flav®fresh deal with this issue by staving off the discoloration for a longer period of time.

FOOD SAFETY 34 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
"We work with clients, SME’s and large companies, to help find and develop solutions for a range of different sectors and products, from meat to fruit and vegetables and seafood."
The latest anti-bacterial surface protection from Earlee|Control promises better control and protection.

Flav®fresh is most suited for use in the production of smoked and non-smoked meats, processed raw meat, cooked and ready-to-eat meals.

All these products have large manufacturing bases within Australia, and thanks to the product being made and distributed from Australia, it is readily assessable and quick to acquire.

The solution also has a clean label food application and available in either ready-to-use or concentrated formulas.

As onshore manufacturing continues to ramp up in Australia in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, manufacturers are being encouraged to employ new innovations as quickly as possible to not only gain a competitive edge, but to also protect the perception and reputation of the brand.

The consumer base is quickly being spoiled for choice and studies have proven consumer demands around quality of products and how they are manufacturerd continues to grow, and in turn it can promote brand loyalty and stronger sales.

Any tool a manufacturer can use to prevent brand damaging recalls, out of date products, or the loss of product during the manufacturing process as a result of contamination, should be considered an invaluable one which can pay for itself in quick time. F

www.ams-ic.com.au

AMS have been suppliers of instrumentation and calibration equipment to all industries since 1973 representing some of the world’s leading manufacturers of the equipment in their field.

FOOD SAFETY www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 35
INSTRUMENTATION & CALIBRATION PTY LTD SPECIALISTS
Analytical Process Division www.ams-ic.com.au sales@ams-ic.com.au
The Liquid Measurement Experts Dew-Point, Humidity and Oxygen Specialists
Leaders of Inline Process
Control Solutions
Gas Analysis Combustion Gas Analysis
The anti-bacterial surface protector also helps extend the shelf life of food products.

There are various benefits to employing low temp spray drying

traditional spray dryer,” he said.

“We work at much lower temperatures, half the drying temperatures in terms of degrees Celsius.

“Those lower temperatures pretty much allow us to dry a quality product without killing off living cells or destroying biological activity in high value products, like lactoferrin in dairy, for example.”

“It is also in the most concentrated form, as a liquid you would probably have to transport large quantities, but as powder it is a fraction of that,” he added.

Stability usually comes down to temperature and oxygen.

ensuring it can be on shelves longer by enduring the journey better.

Spraying Systems’ Fluid Air spray drying technology has already created a proven track record for producing quality powder by removing water at low temperatures in an oxygenfree environment.

These two factors alone go a long way towards helping extend the shelf life of a food product, and as detailed in this story, it can also be use to preserve specific flavours.

“The difference between our PolarDry® spray dryers and existing technology is that we can dry at lower temperatures which creates a lot of benefits, with heat sensitive materials being a great example of this,” said head of global research at Fluid Air, Dr Bogdan Zisu.

“We also encapsulate oils extremely well and the way we do that is by introducing electrostatic charge during the drying process, which is unique to the process.

“The other aspect of drying which is unique to our process is that we dry in a nitrogen environment, not in oxygen.”

As a point of difference, more traditional spray drying technology tend to work at very high temperatures to achieve the highest output possible, sometimes at the expense of quality.

Zisu said Spraying Systems’ Fluid Air innovations work strongly to ensure greater functionality.

“Things that are killed off or denatured by heat, proteins and living cells for example, will die off in a

In terms of using the technology for flavouring, Zisu said the current technology was originally developed a decade ago to address a specific issue within food manufacturing, then over time its applications in other areas became obvious.

“We partnered with a flavours company and together, we came up with this electrostatic spray dryer, which is pretty much designed for flavour encapsulation, specifically oil flavour encapsulation,” he said.

“The company that we paired with has two or three of our largest dryers and they also maintain their traditional product line, which is a high heat s pray dryer.”

There are several techniques that can be used for flavour preservation or presentation which usually involves encapsulation. This is where you trap the flavour and then present it in a gel or liquid form, but most of the time it will be a powder.

“The reason powder is a preferred solution, and taken up widely by industry, is that it can handle equally well water-soluble flavours and those that are lipid soluble,” said Zisu.

“Once the water is removed and you have a stable product, it is easy to handle, reduces transport costs and adds a lot of other benefits.

“Those are the general points that make spray drying the preferred solution to producing flavour compounds.”

Zisu added that the product is most likely to be in its most stable state in powdered form and reducing the presence of water also helps improve stability and limit risks.

“As I mentioned, we use much lower drying temperatures are beneficial for retaining those volatile compounds and going back to the 7 per cent retention versus 80 per cent example,” said Zisu.

“Often these compounds are lipidsoluble, and lipid doesn’t react well, especially in the long term, while in the presence of oxygen.

“Our technology uses nitrogen, so we eliminate that factor during processing, adding to product stability.”

The applications across the food manufacturing industry are numerous, from compounding applications, to nutritional formulations where you want to mask or add flavours to it, as an example.

“It could be retaining natural flavours like citrus which are highly volatile or preserving milk flavours that are susceptible to oxidation and heat. It’s retaining natural flavours and also flavour masking,” said Zisu.

“Even with colour preservation of the powders for particular flavour compounds, when spray dried at low temperature, colour would preserve that too.”

In recent years the presence of SME’s and start-ups has continued to increase in Australia which has also led to an increase in queries from the industry.

“They all want an advantage over competitors and a lot of interest we have comes from the smaller start-ups without the infrastructure in place, so they are more willing to explore the potential of these technologies as they build and grow,” said Zisu.

“When the time comes for expansion, they strongly consider this new technology, and it is widely accepted as adding value to processes.”

Shelf life also extends to transporting, or exporting product,

Because products which are exported experience a variety of external factors, such as extreme temperatures, the longer the product can withstand these conditions the better it is in the long run for the producer.

“Product is put on a container ship and sits in storage for a long time and during this time there are temperatures abuses which accelerate the deterioration and quality breakdown and ultimately the shelf life of the powder suffers,” said Zisu.

“But with our lower temperature treatment there are fewer temperatureinduced reactions, and we have a longer window of opportunity to transport and store that product before it meets the end of its shelf life.”

Another factor which helps to create an extended shelf life for products is nitrogen processing to create an oxygen free environment during the drying process.

“We spoke about heat and the preservation effect because of lower temperatures but there is also oxidative breakdown, which accelerates product loss through oxidation reactions,” said Zisu.

“Our drying technology also works in a nitrogen environment, and nitrogen displaces oxygen, limiting the oxidative breakdown.”

Spraying Systems Australia and Fluid Air also offer a flexible approach for customers that are looking to employ the Polar Dry® technology for the first time, with a research and development facility situated in Melbourne.

“We have a range of dryers from the very small benchtop feasibility unit to the largest commercial dryer that we have, which has the capacity to remove 200kg of water per hour, but we can also scale up to meet demand,” said Zisu.

“The facility we have here in Melbourne has a smaller drier so you don’t need to use large quantities for the R&D part of the testing process.” F

SPRAY DRYING 36 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
The benefits of using a low temperature spray dryer over more traditional heat drying technology are wide ranging, from extended shelf life more efficient output. Food & Beverage Industry News reports.
The Fluid Air spray drying technology promises a host of benefits.

Safety Storage Efficiency

Combilift is the perfect fit for the grocery trade industry. Safely handle goods in narrow aisles, and minimise double handling with our multidirectional forklifts, articulated reach trucks and pedestrian forklifts.

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To find out how Combilift can help you unlock every inch of your storage space

Enhance the Safety, Storage and Efficiency of your logistics with Combilift

MICE 2023 is beginning to take shape

After COVID-19 postponements, 2022 saw the return of the Melbourne International Coffee Expo after three years on ice.

Held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, MICE routinely hosts more than 170 exhibitors representing all sectors of the global supply chain, including coffee producers and green importers, equipment manufacturers, roasters, packaging companies, and dairy and dairy alternatives.

With plans well underway, the 2023 event, scheduled for August 17-19, is already looking to meet, and even exceed, expectations after a bumper 2022.

Since its inception in 2012, MICE is recognised as the largest dedicated coffee show in the Southern Hemisphere.

Organisers reiterate the purpose of the expo is to connect buyers and sellers and bring industry members together in the one space annually to do business. It’s a one-stop-shop to the latest and greatest technology circulating the global coffee industry.

A strong of key brands that have already committed to the 2023 event, including BioPak, specialists in sustainable packaging, which is taking the coffee industry by storm as consumers move towards more sustainable practices.

BioPak combines innovative material design with a business model that is responsible and sustainable to create a truly regenerative brand, one that creates products that are as safe and healthy for people as they are for the environment.

ADM Packaging Automation has also committed to the expo in August. The packaging company innovate flexible packaging solutions.

ADMPA packaging machines supply customised flexible packaging solutions for dry and liquid products such as coffee, confectionery, food, cosmetics, pet food, pharmaceutical and building products and service a diverse range of manufacturing industries across Australia

and South East Asia, making the company a perfect exhibitor for MICE2023.

Maltra Foods, Naked Syrups, and Monin will also be showcasing flavouring and syrup options to the industry.

Maltra Foods is an Australian based manufacturer of bespoke drinking chocolate and chair powders, supplying to the highly regarded Melbourne café scene.

Meanwhile Kerry Ingredients specialise in innovation around a string of areas including clean label, consumer insights, culinary and mixology, food safety and quality, manufacturing, and regulation. All of these factors are perfectly suited to manufacturers and producers in the coffee sector, especially with changing trends.

This year Kerry Ingredients will be showcasing its DaVinci Syrups.

Naked Syrups are experts in premium flavoured syrups, beverage powders, toppings and sauces, and merchandise. The selection of interesting flavourings from Naked Syrups includes turmeric, beetroot, chai powder, and frappe. Interesting new flavours which will no doubt be on show at MICE2023.

And finally, Stuart Alexander, one of Australia’s oldest and most respected importers and distributors of global brands across a variety of sectors, including unique and premium beverages. This year Stuart Alexander will be showcasing its Monin syrups range.

As demonstrated above, key stakeholders within the coffee industry have already committed to MICE2023, indicating the upward growth of the international expo continues to grow.

MICE was developed as Australia’s first and only coffee-dedicated trade show; a time for the coffee industry in Australia to come together in one place, at one time.

As an annual event, it also provides an anchor point for international guests to connect with new and existing Australian customers, which has taken on added

importance in recent years.

With so much of the coffee community brought together annually, the opportunities to generate businesses, to start partnerships, and for the coffee community to network continued to

MICE 38 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au
After its successful return in 2022, planning for the 2023 Melbourne International Coffee Expo is well underway with various key stakeholders already committed to the exhibition.
Plans are already well underway for MICE 2023. Key stakeholders from the sector have already comitted to the event. MICE was developed as Australia’s first coffee-dedicated trade show.
Food & Beverage Industry News is distributed nationally to more than 5000 subscribers, while the website has more than 40,000 unique views every month. It is the food and beverage industry’s one-stop-shop when it comes to the latest products, services and technologies in this space. Visit our website and subscribe to get your print and digital editions in additon to our free daily newsletters today! foodmag.com.au To book contact Stephanie Suzuki now stephanie.suzuki@primecreative.com.au 0422 046 711 PLUS: Machinery | Functional Ingredients | Events The challenges of entering the manufacturing space

Deal activity slows down

Nourish Ingredients raised $45.6 million via a Series A funding round. The capital raise was led by Horizon Ventures and supported by Main Sequence Ventures and Hostplus. Nourish Ingredients makes animal-free fats and oils for alternative proteins.

Lyka Pet Food raised $30 million from a Series B funding round. The capital raise was led by Israeli entrepreneur and investor Itai Tsiddon and other investors include Afterwork Ventures, Wattle Hill Capital and Point King Capital. Lyka Pet Food offers personalised diets for pets.

Vitasoy International exercised an option to acquire a 49 per cent shareholding in Vitasoy Australia from Bega Cheese for a consideration of $27.5 million. Vitasoy Australia is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vitasoy International.

Perth-based pie manufacturer Mrs Mac’s was sold to Aus Pie Co. Aus Pie Co is backed by the owners of United Petroleum and Pie Face.

Fonterra sold its Chilean business,

20 Oct 2022Nourish Ingredients ($45m capital raise) Various investors Plant based foods

25 Oct 2022 Lyka Pet Food ($30m capital raise)Various investors Pet food

2 Nov 2022 Vitasoy Australia (49%) Vitasoy InternationalBeverages

2 Nov 2022 Ravenswood Australia Brenntag Industrial ingredients

11 Nov 2022 Mrs Mac’s Aus Pie Co Baked goods

21 Nov 2022 Soprole (Fonterra’s business in Chile) Gloria Foods Dairy

28 Nov 2022 Leonards Superior Smallgoods (NZ)Service Foods Smallgoods

15 Dec 2022Petspiration Group (55% shareholding)Woolworths GroupPet food

billion. Gloria Foods is a South American dairy processor with a presence in several South American countries.

New Zealand based foodservice distributor, Service Foods, acquired Leonards Superior Smallgoods. Leonards supplies processed meat products to restaurants, cafés, hospitality venues and retail outlets in New Zealand.

shareholding in Petspiration Group for $586 million. Petspiration Group owns the speciality pet retail chain PETstock with more than 200 stores across Australia and New Zealand. The outlook for transactions in the food and beverage industry in 2023 is positive. The defensive nature of the industry is expected to drive investor interest in the industry in 2023 from both trade investors and financial

MARKETWATCH
Corporate activity in the food and beverage industry slowed down slightly in the months of November and December 2022. Eight transactions were announced over the two-month period to mid-December 2022.
Date Target Name Acquirer Sector
Ben van der Westhuizen and David Baveystock are directors of Comet Line Consulting, an advisory business that specialises in acquisitions and divestments within the Australian food & beverage industry. For more information visit Fonterra sold its Chilean business, Soprole, for NZ$1.06 billion

Global dairy commodity update for December 2022

Short-term fundamentals have weakened a little, with a little more milk availability while the outlook for demand in the domestic markets of major producers and in China is weaker.

Most of the focus of weaker sentiment remains on the demand side with the fear that consumers will react higher costs of living by trading down to cheaper dairy products and meal options and avoiding some discretionary dairy purchases. Inflation is close to peaking in both the EU & US but impacts on spending are (so far) mixed.

It is expected that EU domestic cheese and butter demand impacts will worsen in H1-2023. Meanwhile cheese demand in the US so far appears resilient, as demand shifts to lower-priced lines and a stronger emphasis on mozzarella which is helping keep cheddar relatively balanced. While those domestic markets consume a dominant share of tradable

milk solids, the unpredictable situation in China will remain in focus, especially for its influence on Oceania prices and milk use. China’s government announced a gradual easing of COVID restrictions, but since shown that it will continue with harsh and futile restrictions to limit the mobility of its people – and limit the recovery in demand for dairy in the short-term.

Supply-side conditions are diverse as global milk supplies steadily improve. Milk collections in the top 5 exporters are expected to grow near 0.5 per cent in Q4-2022 and by close to 1 per cent in H1-2023. There are however headwinds for milk producers. This milk growth on top of weak Chinese demand for WMP is adding to available SMP and butterfat.

NZ milk output was near to 4 per cent weaker over the production peak, but milk supply may improve in late summer with the forecast weakening of La Nina’s grip, although feed shortages are apparent. EU milk supplies have quickly improved (compared to the weak output this time last year) with a boost to

feed availability in warm autumn weather which should improve stored forage through winter.

While US output is also expanding, the growth in cow numbers is small. Per-cow yield gains may slow with weaker milk producing margins in coming months. F

DAIRY www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 41
Australian and Chinese demand for milk has weakened.

An integrated embedded mini pc system from ICP

ICP Australia is proud to introduce IEI’s TANGO-3010-JWC-R10 series, a robust fanless system with an integrated Intel® Celeron™ processor.

This fanless small PC, which has dimensions of just 139x137x40mm, can support up to one 2.5-inch SSD and one PCIe® Gen3 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD. Its onboard 8GB LPDDR4x memory and quad-core Intel® Celeron® J6412 processor with Intel® UHD graphics can easily handle business and industrial activities.

Additionally, to meet your industrial communication demands, IEI’s TANGO offers RS-232/422/485 serial ports in addition to three Intel® 2.5 GbE LAN interfaces. With a light, small but robust chassis ensuring durability and reliability, the mini PC can be set up in an instant and taken almost anywhere, even in harsh environments, making it ideal for enterprise, digital signage, and industrial data transmission gateway.

It features:

• Ultra-compact Industrial Mini PC

• Fanless System

• Intel® Celeron™ J6412 2.0 GHz (up to 2.6 GHz, quad core, TDP 10W)

• Triple 2.5 GbE LAN

• Built-in WI-FI 6E & Bluetooth 5.2 module (internal antenna)

• 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2

• 2 x USB 2.0

• 2 x HDMI 1.4 b Support CEC

• Dimensions: 139 x 137 x 39.8 mm

ICP Electronics Australia (02) 9457 6011 wwwicpaustralia.com.au

Multi-touch built-in Panel PC from Beckhoff

The CP22xx built-in Panel PC series is characterized by a modern operating concept with multi-touch display as well as an advanced, elegant device design. It is designed for installation in the front of a control cabinet. The CP22xx combine reliable Beckhoff Control Panel design with state-of-the-art Industrial PC technology. The right display size is available for every application – in landscape or portrait orientation (horizontal/vertical). With their highly integrated 3½-inch motherboards, the CP22xx built-in Industrial PCs represent a high-performance platform for machine design and plant engineering applications that can be used in conjunction with TwinCAT automation software under Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

CP22xx Panel PCs are equipped with Intel® Celeron®, Pentium® or Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors and have one or two hard disks, SSDs or CFast cards or combinations thereof. With the on-board RAID controller, two same hard disks, SSDs or CFast cards can be mirrored.

CP22xx are supplied with a 24 V power supply unit, optionally also with an integrated uninterruptible power supply (UPS). A battery pack can be connected externally and installed on a DIN rail close to the PC.

Due to its two independent Ethernet interfaces the CP22xx is ideally suited as a compact central processing

unit for an EtherCAT control system.

Beckhoff www.beckhoff.com

(03) 9912 5430

NEW PRODUCTS 42 Food &Beverage Industry News | February 2023 | www.foodmag.com.au

The latest AI inference platform from Backplane Systems

Backplane Systems Technology is proud to present the Nuvo-7168GC series is, a ruggedized AI inference platform supporting NVIDIA® RTX A2000 GPU which offers better longevity for industrial AI inference applications, such as machine vision inspection, machine automation, and intelligent video analytics. Operating with NVIDIA® RTX A2000, Nuvo-7168GC delivers 8 TFLOPS in FP32 GPU computing power for real-time AI inference.

Key Features:

• Supports NVIDIA® RTX A2000 GPU

• -25°C to 60°C wide-temperature operation

• Intel® 9th/ 8th-Gen Core™ hexa-core 35W/ 65W LGA1151 CPU

• 6x GigE ports, 802.3at PoE+ option available (ports 3~6)

• M.2 2280 M key NVMe (Gen3 x4) socket for fast storage access

• 4x USB 3.1 Gen2 ports and 4x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports

• Accommodates two 2.5” SATA HDD/ SSD with RAID 0/ 1 support

• MezIO™ interface for easy function expansion

Nuvo-7168GC: Intel® 9th/ 8th-Gen Core™ AI Inference Platform with 6x GbE and MezIO™, supporting NVIDIA® RTX A2000.

Backplane Systems Technology

www.backplane.com.au (02) 9457 6400

Mass flow / pressure controllers for low gas flows

FLEXI-FLOW Compact Mass Flow / Pressure Controllers are suited for accurate measurement and control of flow ranges between 0…500 mln/min and 0…20 ln/min at operating pressures between vacuum and 17 bar(a). The instrument combines a swift and stable thermal mass flow sensor based on capillary MEMS technology with a precise and proven by-pass construction. Due to the unique, internationally patented TCS Technology (Through Chip Sensor), accurate mass flow measurement, virtual independent of variations in temperature and line pressure is established. In combination with integrated temperature and up- and downstream pressure sensors, the embedded database for 22 gases allows accurate, on-board conversion. The multiparameter instruments provide the user with useful process information.

FLEXI-FLOW Compact Mass Flow / Pressure Controllers are currently available in 3 variants:

• ‘Preconfigured Advanced’ (PA)

• ‘Preconfigured Standard’ (PS), turndown 1:50, flow + temperature, 4 flow

• ‘Built-to-Order’ (BtO)

AMS Instrumentation and Automation

(03) 9017 8225

www.ams-ic.com.au

NEW PRODUCTS www.foodmag.com.au | February 2023 | Food &Beverage Industry News 43

WE SOLVE YOUR WATER CHALLENGES

XYLEM CLEAN WATER

TRANSFER SOLUTIONS

Xylem’s Lowara brand leads the way in providing energy efficient clean water transfer solutions across the food and beverage industry. Our pumps, monitors and controls are all developed prioritising low life cycle costs and ease of use. Whether it be for food processing or water transfer, Lowara has a reliable solution for you.

Scan the QR code below to find out more about our food and beverage solutions.

13 19 14 | xylem.com/au | solve@xylem.com
@xylemanz
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