Maintaining a healthy balance B

Marcel Koks looks at how the emergence of Maintenance 4.0 is raising the standard, and driving up safety standards across the food and beverage industry

22 www.foodchainmagazine.com

oth the pandemic and Brexit have aggravated the challenges faced by food and beverage manufacturers, with consumer demand fluctuating, supply bottlenecks in certain areas and rising costs all converging to create a perfect storm. Safety recalls in particular, continue to represent one of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers, proving both costly and risky. A report launched in 2019 indicated that food safety recalls were on the rise. But rather than pointing to a dip

in standards, reasons cited typically centered around new labelling requirements, improved capacity for identifying anomalies, and growth in the ‘free from’ sector which is particularly vulnerable to cross contamination issues. And of course, Covid has since brought with it a renewed focus on the contamination risk from people and pathogens within the production plant. In a world where food safety is paramount, and brand reputation king, even one safety recall is too many. And when it comes to addressing this