FoodChain Issue 107 November 2015

FoodChain Issue 107

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NOV 2015

The business of food and drink

Oh my cod Family-owned fish manufacturer Gunnar Klo continues to deliver environmentally approved, high quality cod to a hungry market

Industry News l

Conditions for success The question for food manufacturers is ‘how much bad weather is too much?

New sweet sprouting cauliflower launched

Although many companies have exceptional traceability controls, data cannot often be easily shared Novel food status given to Ahiflower l

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Trace for life

Exciting restaurant opens in Norwich

Editor’s Welcome

Chairman Andrew Schofield

Stormy weather

Editor Libbie Hammond Art Editor Advertising Design Fleur Daniels Staff Writers Jo Cooper Andrew Dann Ben Clark Profiles Manager Emma Crane Business Development Director David Garner Sales Manager Joe Woolsgrove Sales Rob Wagner Emma Kerton Head of Research Philip Monument Editorial Researcher David Brogan Office Manager Advertising Administrator Tracy Chynoweth Studio Assistant Barnaby Schofield

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ello and welcome to issue 107 of FoodChain! As I write this editor’s page the weather outside is grey and dank, but what I might expect from late October. However, when the weather is as changeable as it seems to be

lately, farmers, growers and processors all find themselves in a difficult position.

As Kurt Cripps identifies in his article on page 4, food and drink businesses are being forced to adapt to weather risk scenarios. He highlights the question ‘how much bad weather is too much?’ and while the public may be inconvenienced about a wet summer, businesses can find their bottom line for

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sales and profits are hit hard when the clouds appear.

It might be a typically English thing to complain about the weather – has it

@FoodChain_mag

Schofield Publishing Cringleford Business Centre, 10 Intwood Road, Cringleford, Norwich, NR4 6AU, U.K. Tel: +44 (0)1603 274130 Fax: +44 (0)1603 274131

affected you this year?

libbie@schofieldpublishing.co.uk

www.foodchain-magazine.com www.schofieldpublishing.co.uk © 2015 Schofield Publishing Ltd Please note: The opinions expressed by contributors and advertisers within this publication do not necessarily coincide with those of the editor and publisher. Every reasonable effort is made to ensure that the information published is accurate, but no legal responsibility for loss occasioned by the use of such information can be accepted by the publisher. All rights reserved. The contents of the magazine are strictly copyright, the property of Schofield Publishing, and may not be copied, stored in a retrieval system, or reproduced without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Contents 14

10 7 8 16 Features Weather & Supply Chain Conditions for success

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How food and drink businesses are being forced to adapt to weather risk scenarios

IT Keep it safe

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Process manufacturing executives are rethinking how they develop and launch new products

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The increasing use of mobile devices and cloud-based services all contribute to the security burden

Labelling Looking ahead

Process Solutions Pass or fail

Traceability Trace for life

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Viewing traceability information, at both a high and drilled down level, allows full understanding of the supply chain

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Libbie Hammond discusses trends in labelling with Stuart Kellock and Christophe Roucher

News

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Up-to-date products and announcements from the food and beverage sector

Taste Test

The FoodChain team sample a selection of new and innovative foods and drinks

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20

32

40 30

27 Profiles

Innovations & developments within some of the world’s finest companies

Cosucra 20

Hennig-Olsen 46

Steritech 24

Sweetdreams 50

The Welsh Pantry 27

J.J. Darboven 52

Diosna Dierks & Sohne 30

Aldaris 56

Gunnar Klo 32

Just Hospitality 60

Budelpack 36

Morrow Brothers 62

Well established chicory and pea processor Cosucra has invested 30 million euros in new equipment

Steritech brings to market a range of high quality, innovative and process driven sterilisation and pasteurisation systems

A significant manufacturer in the UK savoury market, The Welsh Pantry keeps its focus on quality and efficiency

Innovative dough production company Diosna Dierks & Sohne has ambitions to be a globally leading dough expert

Fish manufacturer Gunnar Klo is part of a pilot cod hotel project to find out if cod can be kept in temporary sea storage locations

Forward thinking Budelpack is always striving to create new business model for customers, including its new On-Site concept

Ice cream manufacturer Hennig-Olsen has launched both low fat frozen yogurt and luxury dairy ice cream this year

It is an exciting time for Sweetdreams as the company works on its expansion plans and introduces more customers to its products

What sets J.J. Darboven apart from its competitors in its market are the premium brands that it manufactures

With the upcoming release of its range of craft beers and speciality porter, Aldaris is set to provide clients with even more variety

The core business of Just Hospitality is contract catering, but it also offers events catering and supports commercial outlets

As a family business, cask and keg refurbisher Morrow Brothers is able to move its strategy quickly

Sharpak - Yate and Bridgewater 40

With a period of successful growth under its belt, the future for Sharpak is positive, and it sees opportunities going forward

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Conditions for success How food and drink businesses are being forced to adapt to weather risk scenarios.

By Kurt Cripps

Kurt Cripps

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or food and drink businesses weather is no small talk topic. It is a volatile external factor influencing consumer behaviour and market dynamics. The weather can quite literally make or break a company’s year.

The perception that our climate is becoming less predictable appears to be borne out by evidence from a number of sources; food and drink companies are indeed experiencing sometimes significant impacts on their revenues, costs and margins.

In 2013, the Aon Food and Drink Risk Survey1 identified weather as a top ten risk for UK food and drink businesses with 16 per cent confirming they had been impacted by weatherrelated risks during 2012.

Unsurprisingly for many of the

businesses impacted, 2012 was the second wettest year on record; March 2013 was the coldest since 1962 and July 2013 the 3rd warmest on record.

2015 has also been a disappointment for many manufacturers who rely on the summer months to deliver their peak demand as the temperature rises.

The Met Office said summer 2015 was cooler and wetter than either of the two previous summers, with a provisional mean temperature of 13.9C, which is 0.4C below the 1981-2010 average.

Conversely, rainfall was above average, with 113 per cent of the average falling on UK shores during the summer months.

But while food and drink businesses will expect wet and cold weather during autumn and winter, what if seasonal averages upon which their forward

Weather & Supply Chain

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planning is based no longer apply? How much of that financial impact can be absorbed?

The question for food

Manage risk

tolerance. How much bad

Manufacturers have a variety of means at their disposal to manage the risk posed by unseasonal weather. For some this means an approach that smoothes their exposure to volatility in commodity prices of raw materials like wheat, rice, coffee and other staples.

Wheat averaged a price of 404.25 USD/ BU from 1982 until 2015, reaching an all-time high of 1194.50 USD/BU in February of 2008 and a record low of 192 in July of 1999. In the late 1990s this volatility prompted the creation of the very first ‘weather derivatives’ which allowed companies to reduce the risk associated with adverse or unexpected

manufacturers is about weather is too much? weather conditions; paying out if conditions force commodity prices up beyond a pre-defined tolerance or if poor conditions impact a key trading season.

Given the advances in these financial instruments, it would seem the food and drink manufacturing industry is well on its way to beating the climate at its own game and ensuring that no amount of rain can stop its parade. However, a scan of any stock-market-listed manufacturer’s

investor relations pages where finance directors explain to shareholders about business performance will tell you that the weather remains high on bosses’ list of problems at which to point the finger of blame. 2015 has been no exception, with an inclement summer unfortunately hitting the bottom line for some as sales, and profits, both fell (see box).

Ironically, the opposite can also be true. Two years ago, the weather was blamed by major food brands on the high street for a fall in customer numbers, but industry trade magazines simultaneously reported in the same month (July 2013) that ice cream sales had shot up by as much as 300 per cent, with retailers struggling to fill shelves quick enough to meet demand.

If you look back far enough, the

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Weather & Supply Chain Prepared for a rainy day? l AG

Barr: Reporting figures for the first half of 2015, the Scottish company said bad weather in August had hit drinks sales, forecasting a five per cent decrease in annual pre-tax profits

l C&C

Group: The makers of Magners cider and Tennent’s lager said wet and cold weather in Ireland and Scotland had a negative impact on business, with trading weaker in the three months to May 2015

l Grocery

sales slump: Scottish Retail Consortium reports food sales down 4.5 per cent - wet weather and deflation to blame

resignation by manufacturers over how weather impacts their business is categorical, and in most cases made without any recourse to a solution. The default position is to hope that this year things will work in your favour.

Unfortunately, investors appear increasingly to label this tactic in rather unflattering terms. ‘Earnings excuses’ was the subject of a recent article in Fortune Magazine titled ‘the weather ate my returns’, highlighting how the weather alongside other macro trends like currency fluctuations, the price of oil and so on are increasingly used to justify falling profits. “A 2014 study by Emory University researcher Dexin Zhou, titled ‘The Blame Game,’ found that the more corporate executives blamed poor performance on external factors, the less their stocks returned in the future2,” it said.

The question for food manufacturers is about tolerance. How much bad weather is too much? Every organisation has a risk appetite but with modern

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approaches to data mining and analytics it has now become possible for companies to identify and isolate a trading loss as an insurable interest and hedge against that loss without resorting to complex derivatives.

Historical climate analysis can be overlaid against trading data to produce a ‘real time’ review of how and why the weather influenced your company’s sales over time. For companies that habitually look to the skies for a reason why consumers open their wallets, this can be a very powerful tool, not only when sales drop but also when demand surges beyond expectations.

The UK has recently been enjoying just such a scenario with the Rugby World Cup coming to a close on 31st October. The fate of numerous food and drink brands has been riding on the success of the competition with beer and tied promotions in every retail outlet.

Indeed, the performance of the home nations’ teams can and does

have an influence on sales, leading many manufacturers to build ‘what if?’ scenarios into their production planning. But when pub gardens across the country are washed out from an unseasonal deluge it stands to reason that winning on the field should not be the only variable a manufacturer should plan for. D 1

Web-based survey conducted in Q4 2012

in conjunction with The Grocer 2

http://fortune.com/2015/04/24/the-

weather-ate-my-returns/

Kurt Cripps is Global Head of Weather at Aon Benfield. Aon plc is a leading global provider of risk management, insurance brokerage and reinsurance brokerage, and human resources solutions and outsourcing services. Through its more than 69,000 colleagues worldwide, Aon unites to empower results for clients in over 120 countries via innovative risk and people solutions. www.aon.com

IndustryNews Flower of the future

A revolution in cauliflower?

While once a common UK weed, a brand new superior plantderived source of essential fatty acids grown and cultivated on British soil will soon be available to UK consumers after the European Commission (EC) granted Ahiflower Oil novel food status.

Known as an Omega powerhouse, Ahiflower Oil is up to four times more effective than flaxseed oil and is the richest, most effective combined essential fatty acid source from a single nonGM plant.

This new super ingredient, developed exclusively by Nature’s Crops International (NCI), can now be used in food supplements, dairy products and breakfast cereals among other listed uses in the European Union and is now commercially available under licence to brands and manufacturers for the first time. The UK brand Vertese will have an Ahiflower Oil vegetarian softgel product available by the end of October.

“As a complete source of essential fatty acids, Ahiflower Oil is superior to flax or evening primrose supplements, and an excellent substitute to fish oil,” says Andrew Hebard, CEO of Technology Crops International, the parent company to NCI. “The EU novel foods approval marks the culmination of 12 years of dedicated research and agricultural development to offer a genuine alternative to conventional plant sources of Omega 3s.” www.ahiflower.com

Launched by Waitrose at a limited number of stores, the new version is versatile, easier-to-cook and sweeter than traditional cauliflower. The retailer believes that the new product suits modern lifestyles and will appeal to all ages.

The leading UK vegetable producer the Produce World Group has grown Sweet Sprouting Cauliflower as part of its ongoing innovation programme.

“Sweet Sprouting Cauliflower has been popular in China for a long time and it has a number of characteristics which we believe will appeal to British consumers of all ages,” says Gemma Hodgson, Fresh Produce Buyer with Waitrose. “We know that people are under time pressure, and preparation and cooking times are getting shorter.

This product can be eaten raw in salads, used in stir-fries, steamed, roasted or barbequed and it’s ready in a matter of minutes. We also think that the sweet taste and crunchy texture will appeal to children and adults alike.” www.produceworld.co.uk

Pallet provider CHEP has announced that leading international biscuit manufacturer United Biscuits (UB) has signed a three-year contract renewal for managed pallets in the UK, France and Benelux for more than three million pallet movements annually.

CHEP has been supplying United Biscuits with pallets since the 1970s and is the company’s principal supplier, owing to CHEP’s managed pallet pooling system and the flexibility of its service offering.

Rob Wright, United Biscuits Head of Distribution, said: “Our partnership with CHEP has been key in meeting the needs of our customers. It is a company with a broad European network that is fully aligned with our logistics strategy and growth plans. CHEP is able to provide pallets of the quality and quantity that we need, when we need them.”

CHEP’s sustainable business model is also a key factor in the manufacturer’s decision to extend the supplier partnership. CHEP offers an environmentally friendly business model, driven by the continuous repair and reuse of pooled pallets. It is an important advantage that UB really value and the company is counting on CHEP to help them meet their own CO2 emissions reduction targets.

Jorge Montano, CHEP Vice President Europe, Key Account, said: “The sustainability targets and achievements of United Biscuits are commendable and very similar to our own. We are proud to have a role in their Sustainability Programme and we are looking to keep them engaged on the CHEP Carbon Neutral Pallet Programme, which will help

reduce their impact on the environment even further through the purchase of carbon credits to finance carbon emissionreduction projects around the world.” www.chep.com

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Keep it safe

Security in the food supply chain needs to be robust in terms of preventing unauthorised access to systems and also in terms of fault-tolerance, so that when something does go wrong, it is detected and dealt with quickly

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T security in the food chain is mainly thought of as maintaining data confidentiality and restricting access to the system but the true goal of security should be to protect not only confidentiality but the integrity and the availability of systems as well.

Application vulnerabilities and malware top the list of concerns among many businesses, not least those in the food and drink sector. To combat this the first priority for your application’s security should be to ensure that when it talks to your database that the connection is safe.

CSfD’s chief technical officer Ian Hampson says: “Within our Pentelon product suite, we offer our customers a choice: they can use Pentelon’s own built in log-in facility and create a unique user name and password or they can

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use Windows credentials that they already have set up.

“The great advantage of this is that a separate set of user names and passwords don’t need to be set up and remembered - providing the customer with control over their system with the security they already have in place.”

Secondly, your application should provide full authentication. That is, only allowing users to log on to the system who have permission. A very important aspect of a user account system is how user passwords are protected. Website user account databases in particular are hacked frequently, so you must do something to protect your users’ passwords in case your site is ever breached.

The best way to protect passwords is to employ salted password hashing.

Hashing is the process by which a password is turned into a fixed sized alphanumeric string. This is great for protecting passwords, because it stores them in a form that protects them even if the password file itself is compromised as at no point is the plaintext (unencrypted) password ever written to the hard drive. A salt is a random string of data used to modify a password hash, offering further levels of protection should the hashes ever be dissolved.

Thirdly, your application should allow you to control authorisations. That is, controlling which programs a user has access to.

Hampson explains: “All access to Pentelon applications is via a Login Database. This holds all login, operator role, security and company data.

Pentelon also uses group policies that

IT

allow you to assign selective programs to a group. An operator can then be assigned to that group and will only see programs that are relevant to the work that they are doing.

“It also holds the latest version number of the application so Pentelon may reject login attempts by incorrect versions of an application.”

Administration should be entirely separate from normal system use and logging in as an administrator should only provide access to administrative functions.

Your application software should also provide you with a log of all changes being made to your system so that when an administrator makes a change to security related data, you know who did what and when.

Hampson adds: “The Pentelon security log data can be exported and analysed so it can be interrogated. Most systems should have this feature for added security, which is paramount for understanding when and where any foul play has occurred.

“The system should also place a limit on failed attempts, so for example, if repeated attempts are made to access your system using incorrect log-in details then the account will lock and require administrator assistance to release it again.

The resiliency of any application will always to some extent be dependent on the infrastructure that it is installed on and measures such as placing your databases in high availability clusters can greatly assist with the availability of your system for its users.

Such resilience comes at a cost and the organisation must carry out a full risk assessment to determine what level of risk is acceptable to the business and make decisions accordingly. If your application does fail, you want to minimise the impact that it has on your operations by reducing the incidence of data corruption.

“Pentelon prevents the problem of widespread data corruption in the event of a system failure as it stops inconsistent data being introduced to the database. You may lose the current transaction if it has not completed at the time of the catastrophic event but it will not pass on incomplete transactions.

Similar resilience is true for any web front end, including mobile apps where you may lose signal,” says Hampson.

CSfD’s own approach to security is something that is taken very seriously, from requirements for minimum password complexity to the use of secure virtual private networks (VPN) for remote working. As Stephen Toms, systems manager at CSfD states: “We have policies on what can and can’t be attached to our network, robust anti-virus measures have to meet some exacting confidentiality standards for some of our clients working in the public sector. Our approach to security is the same for us as it is for our application software, secure without being intrusive so it is not getting in the way of people being able to do their jobs.

“At the end of the day we want users to be set up to work safely but without having to worry about it.”

Cyber terrorism and trusted third parties are other concerns trending upward. Toms adds: “Our customers have approached us for reassurance that our application systems are safe in view of threats from software security bugs such as Heartbleed and Shellshock which can allow hackers to gain unauthorised access to information and computer systems. Our products are not open to public access and we have no dependency on open source code in our products, so there is no threat with regard to Pentelon.”

However both CSfD and its customers now operate at least in part in the cloud and it is imperative in such environments that access is properly

controlled. Robust defences such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS) and problem-solving measures are essential, along with regular anti-virus health checks. VPNs between private networks and cloud services should be used to restrict the IP addresses and services that are available in order to minimise opportunities for attack or intrusion.

Tom says: “We can help customers who use our Pentelon Data Integrator for hooking up our backend systems to web services by using load balancing features to ensure system availability. We can host two instances in different availability zones, that is different data centres with different risk profiles.”

The increasing use of mobile devices and cloud-based services and the future potential of the Internet-of-Things will all continue to contribute to the security burden. The focus is increasingly on securing traffic in transit. No doubt cyberthreats, such as Heartbleed, will continue to abound - becoming increasingly varied and sophisticated. Marry this together with the broadening footprint of devices and interoperability required and security is going to remain a full time job. D CSfD is a market leader in innovative, flexible supply chain software systems that help businesses with large-scale logistics and distribution requirements grow their business. Its products are widely used in food and pharmaceutical wholesale, third party logistics, utilities and government market sectors.

CSfD’s Pentelon Product Suite delivers fast and efficient solutions across the most commonly used distribution management functions: order processing, purchasing, warehouse management, inventory management and customer relationship management. www.csfd.com

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Looking ahead Ahead of the Packaging Innovations, Empack and Label&Print events, Libbie Hammond caught up with Stuart Kellock, Owner of Label Apeel and Christophe Roucher, European Sales Director at VCG Kestrel to discuss the current trends and issues facing the packaging and labelling sectors

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Labelling LH: What are the most important factors to customers looking for labelling solutions at the moment?

Stuart Kellock

SK: The important factor should be differentiation, whether that is through material, design, shape or colour. Do anything but be different and have a unique personality. ‘Me branding’ is a dead end that erodes profit and revenue, for that reason it should be avoided at all cost. You have to make sure that you look at the market place and understand the spot you are going to fill.

CR: The recent EU-wide reviews for both Food (FIR – Food Information Regulation) and Detergent (CLP – Classification Labelling & Packaging) markets, has really highlighted the need to find more space on labels, to prevent the regulatory aspects prevailing over the brand. This can either be achieved by changing the label structure (larger label, leaflet labels, reverse print), or through digital technology such as QR codes and augmented reality - as we will be presenting during the PI exhibition.

Christophe Roucher

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nternational buyers and leading decision-makers will be flocking to Packaging Innovations, Empack and Label&Print 2016 to see the most innovative and original suppliers within the packaging industry. The two day event, which takes place on 24 & 25 February at Birmingham’s NEC, is designed to bring together the packaging industry to demonstrate the latest technologies, inspire developments, look at the newest approaches and discover the hottest trends.

In such a fast moving industry it is imperative to stay up-to-date with the very latest in design and technology, and what better place to do this than Packaging Innovations, Empack and Label&Print 2016. Over 350 suppliers, including Fischbein Saxon, Epson, Durst Phototechnik, Label Apeel, Nulogy and Schur Star Systems will be using the show to launch innovations and solutions to the packaging market.

Stuart Kellock is the Owner of Label Apeel. Label Apeel is an award-winning printer offering flexo and digital print and design of self-adhesive labels. The company has encyclopaedic knowledge of what gives a label great shelf appeal and it has an unrivalled reputation for working within the FMCG, retail and beers, wines and spirits sectors.

Christophe Roucher is European Sales Director at VCG Kestrel. With locations around the globe including Prague, LA and Sydney, VCGKestrel provides brand and colour management services to some of the world’s leading brand owners. The company offers a complete range of services from design to print quality management.

LH: What is the biggest challenge to the food and beverage labelling sector?

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SK: The biggest challenge of the last 12 months has been keeping on top of legislative changes where labels are concerned. Government is not great at communicating what changes need to happen and in what framework. This

has led to an awful lot of confusion and cost. We work hard to keep on top of legislation and deliver in an understandable way through our Label Geeks blog.

CR: There is no doubt that frequent regulatory changes and tighter controls over legal aspects are an important challenge when it comes to implementation. Customers looking for labelling solutions must keep in mind that regulations will continue to evolve.

Moreover, changes are likely to become more and more frequent, resulting in a complete new environment in terms of finance, risk assessment and timing constraints.

LH: Tell me more about the legislative issues that are demanding changes?

SK: We heard recently about a drive towards it becoming mandatory for nutritional information to go on alcohol.

This is just not true but is a great example of how 2+2 =5. Actually it turns out that one large drinks company has been allowed to put this information on drinks in the States. In the EU, it was being looked at but has hit a brick wall with little appetite to get it moving again.

CR: Legislation is sometimes struggling to cope with fast evolving new technologies such as QR codes, augmented reality and online product databases. These trends are so fast and sometimes unpredictable and creative, that it is difficult, sometimes impossible for the legislator to keep ahead of them.

In such a fast moving industry it is imperative to stay up-to-date with the very latest in design and technology, and what better place to do this than Packaging Innovations, Empack and Label&Print 2016

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Labelling LH: What is the most innovative technology out there at the moment and how does it benefit clients and consumers?

SK: Digital printing is still wowing the market. As with everything there is both good and bad digital print, and clients need to look at the quality of machinery and equipment of their supplier. Clients need to satisfy themselves with regard to colour consistency and definition.

The benefit of digital printing is that it is giving smaller brands the opportunity to compete in terms of on shelf impact with the bigger players, this is driving the trend towards buying local, every town now has its own brewery, every town has a local cheese, meat or coffee supplier.

These local brands look great and this is giving consumer confidence.

LH: Are UK food and drink exporters finding overseas labelling rules a challenge?

SK: Only in the sense that different places do things slightly differently but in reality there is a lot of common ground.

We can help with understanding the differing legislation if people need help.

It is not really knowing about it so much as more to do with finding somewhere to put it all. The back label of any product

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used to be the additional marketing zone, the place people went for supplementary information about the product, that is coming to an end. Now it is the legislative zone and cramming all that information in is getting harder and harder.

CR: The FIR and CLP legislation I have mentioned should result in a

much more harmonised legislative environment. Hopefully this will make it easier for UK food and drink exporters to develop their sales abroad.

Nevertheless, differences persist, such as the ‘food traffic light system’ which is mostly present in the UK but is not part of the EU FIR Regulations. Each market has its own set of specific rules but the trend is for these to be harmonised to standard EU labelling rules.

LH: What is the next trend on the horizon?

SK: For me the continuing localisation of brands has a long way to run. This started its life as a miles to market issue but is now becoming more about the pride people have in where they come from and the produce that comes from there. Where a product comes from is a great story that has a real quality of uniqueness about it and being unique is key to everything.

CR: In the continuity of Pack Copy Management solutions, supplying contextual and appropriate translations, as well as a regulatory approval service, is only a step away. We have already implemented these solutions with some of our clients and demand is likely to continue to develop in the future. D www.labelapeel.co.uk www.vcg-group.com/kestrel

IndustryNews

Cartons of health An ambitious company from Massachusetts has now launched its Maple Water product in carton packs from SIG Combibloc, which are manufactured almost entirely from wood, a renewable resource.

The low-calorie natural tree water with a slightly sweet taste is now available in combifitMidi 1000 ml and will appeal to healthand beauty-conscious consumers.

Maple water has a high content of minerals, trace elements, antioxidants, polyphenols and electrolytes. Refreshing maple water is revitalising and nutritious. It has a strengthening effect on a range of organs and bodily functions, and is believed to make the skin radiant.

Kate Weiler and Jeff Rose, founders of Drink Maple explained some further benefits: “It’s lactose- and gluten-free, has very few calories and contains 46 naturally occurring nutrients – for instance, it’s got more of the trace element manganese than a cup of kale. Manganese activates numerous enzymes in the body, strengthens the bones, and supports healthy thyroid function and blood sugar balance.”

In spring, the maple water starts to

run in the trees. The nutrients that the tree has drawn from the ground and collected during the winter flow through the tree to the furthest tips of the branches. Kate Weiler added: “That’s the moment when the liquid maple water is collected straight from the trees – in a traditional and completely natural way, without harming the trees. Maple water and carton packs go together naturally in the truest sense of the word. It’s a harmonious overall concept for people who take their responsibility for their health and the environment seriously.” www.drinkmaple.com

A world of choice Around 80 jobs were created when a new £1.3m world-banqueting restaurant opened in London Street Norwich, transforming the old Habitat retail outlet near Jarrolds department store.

Bringing a new dining experience to the City, the COSMO Restaurant Group completed a total revamp of the elevated first floor space to create a totally new restaurant experience for Norwich, with an exceptional menu panning many continents. The restaurant can accommodate up to 250 customers, yet the ambiance will ensure all guests enjoy a special banquet experience, with something for everyone and for all ages. The Norwich branch will have the hallmark that is helping to make COSMO such a fast-growing brand.

Cosmo launched in Eastbourne in 2003 by entrepreneur Tom Chan. The London Street branch of the eat-all-you-like restaurant is the 18th COSMO branch to open in the UK. It will offer diners, who will pay one set price,

the choice of more than 150 dishes drawn from the cuisine of different countries, including Japan, India, China, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil and Italy to name a few.

Cosmo Norwich boasts eight live cooking stations – including a Japanese teppanyaki bar, a robata grill and a sushi section, as well as a huge dessert section that includes ice cream, gateaux, fruit and a giant 1.2m tall chocolate fountain.

The restaurant’s interior design, is inspired by five-star hotels in the Far East and includes luxuriously soft seating, marble surfaces and natural stone counters.

Kan Koo, COSMO Group Partner, said: “It was very exciting to see our new COSMO Norwich restaurant taking shape. With Norwich being a top ten retail destination in the UK, Cosmo offers a fresh approach to dining out for visitors alongside business people, families, students, couples and individuals living locally.” www.cosmo-restaurants.co.uk

Autumn menu released LEON has launched its biggest menu revamp yet. Introducing lots of new goodies to fall in lunch with, the naturally fast food chain is encouraging everyone to break their habits and #LoveSomethingNew this autumn. A major development has been the addition of more vegetables, as LEON makes an effort to achieve the perfect balance of being good for everyone and good for the planet. “We have to match the nutritional needs of the individual and the environmental needs of the planet,” says John Vincent, Co-Founder and CEO of LEON. “Making vegetables taste good is a great way of creating that harmony.”

You will now be able to munch on LEON’s Roasted Cauliflower Salad and Roasted Aubergine Pot, both served with Chimichurri to drizzle over. They also have new meatballs of the moment – Paprika Pork Meatballs and Lamb Kofte Meatballs. They have four new drinks. They have Super Pots – Samon & Avocado, Moroccan Meatballs and Chargrilled Chicken – made in collaboration with Joe Wicks, @TheBodyCoach. Even better, they have a new Better Burgers range. www.leonrestaurants.co.uk

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Pass or fail E

ven the best innovators have notorious flops: New Coke, Apple Newton, Microsoft Zune, Life Savers Soda, Harley-Davidson Perfume. The good news for enterprises is that some companies can overcome blunders because their sheer size makes them unstoppable market forces - but for others, even a single mishandled launch can threaten company-wide failure.

These risks are even greater for food manufacturers, who face a choice between innovating and insolvency.

They must launch new and iterative products to excite customers and generate new revenue, on a frequent basis. Yet the path to profitable innovation is paved with challenges: tighter launch windows, fickle end consumers and B2B customers within

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the supply chain, volatile market swings, and – increasingly - demands for unique or customised products for a niche market.

At the same time, product development is fundamentally more difficult in process industries. In many instances, decisions are based on molecular-level evaluations well before any customer has a chance to incorporate a new material into their products. For too many firms in this sector, years of internal research and testing lead to product launches that meet with lukewarm success - and negligible profits. Equally damaging are the great ideas that aren’t pursued, leaving incalculable profits unrealised.

As a result, process manufacturing executives in the food industry are rethinking how they develop and launch

Innovating to succeed in food manufacture and beyond

new products, to minimise risks and maximise profits. The key is to start by defining their requirements for new products, typically defined in the impact upon the market: • Exciting the market with a game changing innovation, usually requires the longest time to market, greatest costs, and greatest risks - but also the largest potential profits.

• Making the market with new products in an existing category is often the result of innovations requested by customers. As a result there is a better chance of market acceptance, but the approach still entails considerable risk (and opportunity).

• Moving the market via iterations, renovations, and maintenance of existing goods offers lower risk, but also lower potential profits.

Process Solutions • Catching up to the market by copying what competitors have already launched, competing for a piece of market share is usually the tactic of last resort. It is not a good place to be with regard to risk or profits; and savvy leaders avoid this position, if at all possible.

Once a market approach has been identified, food manufacturers must evaluate the proposed products across a range of metrics, including: • Costs: ingredients, research and development, production, marketing, and distribution/logistics all add to the initial cost of a new product, often long before revenue will be generated.

• Specifications: These may arise from not only the customer, but also industry, government, and local requirements and demands for compliance.

• Capacity: Does the manufacturer have the facilities, equipment, and corporate knowledge needed to deliver the new product in line with the above?

• Performance: The quality, safety, and time to develop and produce the new product will be just as important as levels of sales.

• Profitability is the defining metric of success – if the new product has not delivered increased profits, it will likely have to be significantly changed or retired.

The overwhelming challenge for food manufacturers is that these factors are not fixed in time. Each factor can change as a product is designed and produced, which then impacts all the other factors. For example, an existing blending operation (capacity) may require an upgrade (costs) to accommodate new ingredients, yet doing so may also impact the speed of production (for better or worse) and characteristics of the product itself (quality and regulatory compliance).

Savvy executives rely on a ‘phased’ or ‘staged’ approach to development, in which innovations are sequenced with specific ‘Go’ or ‘No go’ decision points.

The phased approach A staged approach to product development isn’t new, but new information technologies can make

these approaches dramatically smarter and faster. Improved data allows process manufacturers to quantify the costs of innovation, assess product performance and market potential, and project the time required for launch, as well as profitability at each stage of development. Executives can be confident in their decisions to proceed or not - and give their products the best chance for market success.

A common staged approach involves five progressions: 1. Ideation: Will there be demand for the product? Does the company need the product to re-energise a tired portfolio or is it an entirely new market? Will new ingredients transform an existing product? Can we leverage raw materials in new ways?

2. Define the product: Engineers scope product characteristics such as formula, usage, appearance, and properties. Where possible, marketers re-assess revenue potential based on the product’s preliminary design. The emergent field of simulation enables many businesses to digitally experiment at this point, offering substantial savings against physical prototype development.

3. Create a product plan: Engineers now plan production. Do we have the assets to produce (plants, equipment)? Can we source materials? How long will it take to go from development and testing to production and market? How does the business best package and distribute the product?

4. Prove the product: This stage is highly quantitative, driven by R&D models, prototypes, and trial batches. Early perceptions based on prototypes are gathered from customers, and engineers run experiments to digitally or physically validate their pre development theories. This testing also refines cost estimates: Can we profitably source, make, and distribute? A ‘Go’ decision at this point can commit substantial resources to the project as it triggers a handoff from development to production, and alerts all support functions (procurement,

marketing, finance) to prepare for launch.

5. Make and deliver: Production begins with initial batches compared to design specifications for quality, regulatory compliance, etc. Is the product in the plant the same as the one we designed?

Can we efficiently make full production runs of high-quality product?

Ongoing reviews of market reaction (do customers like it?) and research into product characteristics under market conditions (does it retain quality and safety characteristics?) drive additional development decisions.

A staged approach to process industry product development improves the likelihood that a sellable, profitable, highquality product hits the market on time because the ideas for the product and its manufacture have already undergone significant, but controlled evolution. This allows executives to re-evaluate product concepts as they become more refined, within a context of real-time business conditions. And by incorporating the latest information technologies with integrated stage-gate functionality - to evaluate product parameters, digitally model product features, assess market trends, and analyse emerging ideas - they do so at a pace that today’s markets require. Lastly, it ensures that product development knowledge is captured throughout the process, whether the product is developed or not. The benefits are big for one product - and are dramatic for a company with a portfolio of evolving products. D With 13,000 employees and customers in more than 200 countries and territories, Infor builds software that automates critical processes for industries including healthcare, manufacturing, fashion, wholesale distribution, hospitality, retail, and public sector.

Infor applications deliver a user experience that is fun and engaging while helping eliminate the need for customisation through embedded deep industry domain. Infor deploys its applications primarily on the Amazon Web Services cloud and open source platforms. www.infor.com

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Trace for life Jack Payne says that everyone knows traceability systems trace products from farm to fork but asserts these systems are capable of so much more

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s a food manufacturer/ packager/distributor, it is your responsibility to give consumers, retailers, certification boards, and government agencies a view of the journey, all the way back to its origins. While traceability information is crucial in the event of a food-related recall or outbreak, it’s becoming more important in our customer-centric world for consumers to have confidence that both foodsafety prevention and response do not get overlooked. In today’s high-speed and connected business environment, consumers and manufacturers across the supply chain can agree upon these things: the need for stronger brand

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protection, more awareness, and better control.

FSMA - trust the food on your plate With the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) on the horizon, traceability helps manufacturers meet the requirements for rapid and thorough tracking. The CDC estimates 48 million people per year are being affected by foodborne illnesses, making food safety of utmost importance to consumers and companies within the food industry. FSMA has become the primary driver for improved traceability in the food industry, affirming the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 - anyone playing a role in the food supply chain

Jack Payne

must identify where the product was received and to where it was shipped, so that in the event of a food-safety event, public health can be better protected.

Part of the proactive stance FSMA is taking toward food safety means food manufacturers need to continue to review their own traceability capabilities.

Although many companies have exceptional internal traceability controls, data often cannot be easily shared externally with partners, customers, and suppliers. FSMA is requiring food sectors to incorporate a major traceability imitative in order to meet government regulations and build relationships - giving them the ability to trust and understand what they are eating.

Traceability

Manual data collection and its risk for error Food safety is all about prevention – recall prevention, brand reputation destruction prevention, etc. – as well as response. Beyond prevention and simply having the ability to effectively track recalled products, traceability solutions also play a key role in data collection, thus affecting the overall timeliness of your response. If your company is recording all of its production information manually and keying it into a system, there is the obvious chance for human error. Data collection with bar code scanning within the traceability solution increases the accuracy and timeliness of transactions.

For example, ABC Meat Processing is looking to find cost-savings opportunities with its traceability solution. Immediately after implementation, the company begins using data collection. Very early on, ABC Meat Processing realises it has been spending years pulling the wrong meat for a particular product. Along with using the wrong meat type, the company was sending incorrectly priced meats to consumers, costing the company a significant amount of money. With the real-time validation of information data collection provided, ABC Meat Processing was able to begin processing the correct meat, using the right ingredients to meet customer requirements.

Traceability also supports faster response times. As a spice manufacturer, your company makes spices for other food manufacturers. Your company ships a truckload of salt to several different customers. Your company has put together a small team to manually record all of the tracking and tracing information. Recording this information takes approximately half a day - for viewing, reporting, etc… With the average eight hour business day, assuming there are no meetings or other time commitments or perhaps a lunch break in the way, a half a day is approximately four hours. That puts you barely within the four-hour guideline the FDA allows.

With a traceability solution compiling and sorting the data for you, this same tracking and tracing information is recorded within minutes. As new government regulations, such as FSMA, are causing guidelines to tighten up, it’s crucial to report accurate tracking and tracing information within the given timeframe.

Product recalls are sometimes beyond your control Let’s say all tracking and tracing is done properly and everything is being documented within your company’s traceability system. But, even with every precaution taken within your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, sometimes things happen beyond your control that can trigger a recall. That’s where traceability becomes your best friend, providing the tools needed to track a product - or products - all the way back to square one. This allows for an effectively

managed recall process and getting back to putting quality products on the shelves.

What should i ask of a traceability solution?

Knowing what’s in food and where it comes from sounds simple enough. However, food traceability requires consistent standards and adequate technology in our evolving world.

A traceability solution must be designed to trace products/lots quickly and easily.

Having a graphical view of data enables easy interpretation of even the most-complex process and provides comprehensive data for all relevant areas.

With traceability implemented within your company’s ERP solution, you should be able to immediately answer these questions: • Where are my products?

• Where, when, and in what quantities were my products produced?

• Which ingredients and processes were used to make these products?

• What quality-assurance data is available for each of my products?

• Where, when, and in what quantities were the products shipped to/from?

• Who supplied the raw ingredients and when?

• Were the raw ingredients used in any other products?

Viewing traceability information, at both a high level and a more drilled-down version, allows you to understand the entire supplychain process from receipt of raw materials to shipment to customers and all points in between. Selecting a technology and system to manage the supply chain for food and food ingredients is an important decision. Having an effective traceability solution in place enables your business to better understand, prepare for, and exceed both regulatory compliance and customer satisfaction. D Jack Payne is the Vice President of Solution Consulting for Process Manufacturing at Aptean. With over 22 years of experience in the ERP industry, Jack is a noted expert in food safety, traceability technology, and the role of technology to effectively automate the food recall process. Aptean helps businesses profit, innovate and grow where the work gets done - in the call centre, on the factory floor, at the end of the assembly line. www.aptean.com/uk

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TasteTest

Deliciously different snacks Taste of Nature Organic Fruit and Nut Bars are offering a new way to snack.

Free from fillers, artificial ingredients and chemicals as hard to pronounce, as they are to digest, the all-natural organic fruit and nut bars are packed with wholesome, nutritious ingredients.

Furthermore the bars are produced in small quantities with processing kept to a minimum to maximise nutritional density. The resulting snacks are a source of energy, fibre, protein, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and trace elements. www.healthyfoodbrands.co.uk

These products were a long way from your average cereal bar.

So full of fruit and nuts, each mouthful was really a treat and full of both flavour and texture.

Every variety we tried was exceptional, and the team was unanimous in its approval. “I was sad when we’d eaten all of these,” said one tester. “I’d had one for breakfast several times and they really brightened my morning.”

A wafer thin cracker Does bread make you feel bloated, unsettle your tummy or cause gut problems? Improving digestive health is all about choosing the foods that are right for us. To this end Orgran has introduced some new products to its already vast selection of ‘free from’ items with their new range of Multigrain Wafer Crackers.

These wonderful wafers are packed with the nutritious power of buckwheat, quinoa, and chia. These super grains are known for their high fibre and protein content and chia even has the added value of Omega-3. All the nutritive benefits of these power packed grains make them great aids in improving overall health and well being, plus having a broad and diverse intake of them are an important part of a balanced diet. www.orgran.com

Definitely above average Crazy Jack is an organic range of cooking, baking and snacking foods and the brand is absolutely committed to producing fabulous fare for everyone to eat and cook with.

Using only the best quality ingredients, there are no artificial additives or sulphites in Crazy Jack’s Soil Association certified organic foods. The range includes many firsts, including the first organic apricots in the UK (delicious, no sulphur!) which are award-winning.

Crazy Jack is best known for it’s ready to eat Soft Apricots; these sun dried apricots are extra soft and have

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a delicious, fudge-like flavour which makes them ideal for snacking. They look and taste absolutely nothing like ordinary dried apricots! www.crazyjack.co.uk

“I wasn’t convinced that apricots could be ‘fudgy’ as described, but as soon as I tasted one, I realised the error of my ways,” was one testers comment. “These are certainly the nicest dried apricots I’ve had. I like to snack on products that I feel are healthy but in the past dried fruit has been too dull.

But these squidgy beauties might have changed my opinion!”

“I don’t think I have had a wafer cracker before!” was the first response of the team. But having tried these, all testers were very impressed, finding the multigrain crackers went well with both traditional cheese as well as dips.

“These are so light, yet tasty!” said one respondent. “I also appreciate their free from credentials and even the novelty factor would make me include them with a cheeseboard for guests.”

TasteTest A taste of Italian sunshine Is there anything quite like the taste of a lush, juicy, sweet, Italian sun ripened tomato, warm and just asking to be eaten when it is picked fresh off the vine? That is the taste that Tarantella products promise, whether it’s tinned tomatoes, passata or paste.

The Tarantella organic tomato range is just perfect for sauces to accompany pasta with a sprinkling of freshly chopped basil and oregano…. or as simply as just on a piece of wholemeal toast….a delicious and ideal way to start the day or a quick snack anytime when you’re feeling peckish.

The thick rich juice of the product ensures a wonderful taste and ideal constituent to all recipes – and if you use just the tomatoes, don’t throw the juice away, simply indulge yourself in a Bloody Mary! www.communityfoods.co.uk

The team tried the Tarantella Passata, which proved as rich and tasty as promised. “I do find that passata can be a bit weak and

Store cupboard essentials

bland, but that is not the case here at all,” said one reviewer.

“Not only was it delicious, but it also helped me out a lot with fussy eaters who don’t like lumps of tomato in their pasta sauce.

However, now I kind of wish I had tried the tinned tomatoes and benefited from a Bloody Mary instead!”

For those living with dietary restrictions such as food allergies or intolerances, food shopping can present a monumental challenge. With this in mind, ‘free from’ brand Free & Easy has unveiled an exciting new range of great tasting foods and drinks to help home cooks create delicious and nutritious dishes for the whole family – whatever the dietary requirement.

Free & Easy’s unique new range of soups, sauces, ready meals, curry pastes, gravies, and soft drinks blends wholesome ingredients, spices and seasoning to create rich and satisfying flavours for easy, nourishing and healthy meals.

Free from wheat, gluten and dairy, as well as other allergens such as nuts, celery and mustard but bursting with full-on flavour, Free & Easy foods and drinks have been made without artificial additives and preservatives, are low in salt, sugar and fat and are also suitable for vegetarians and vegans alike. www.hyfoodbrands.co.uk

Healthier lunches Anyone working in an office or even busy parents will find BOLs’ new range of healthy veg and noodle pots of interest.

The ten new products bring an exotic variety of recipes from all over the globe to a desk or dinner table, plus they are all conveniently microwavable and made with top quality ingredients to ensure a satisfying and tasty lunch experience.

They’re healthy and balanced too, with nothing artificial added, at least one portion of veg in every BOL and fewer than 450 calories.

The BOL family features authentic world dishes with a healthy twist such as Thai Coconut Curry and Sri Lankan Lentil Sambar and also include more innovative noodle BOLs such as Thai Thom Yum and Kyoto Curry Ramen.

There’s also a ‘Super’ range, made with nutrient dense ingredients such as beetroot, coconut milk and quinoa. www.bolfoods.com

At first glance it is no surprise that BOL was established by ex-Innocent Director of Food Paul Brown. They have an Innocent vibe about them!

They certainly went down well with the team. “The BOL pot I sampled was very tasty, and the flavours were authentic,” said one reviewer.

“It was super convenient to be able to cook at work and have a quick hot lunch that I knew was giving me one of my five a day!”

“I loved the chickpea and bean tagine,” stated the reviewer who volunteered to taste these products.

“I wouldn’t say I have a lot of food allergies but I am fussy about food and I do like to make sure if I reach for a tin, the contents are as good as they can be. Free & Easy ticks all these boxes with its credentials and offers the convenience of a meal in a hurry! Sometimes you just don’t want to make a big meal from scratch, or you want a quick filling lunch. I am keen to try some of the other items in the range now, and have flagged this brand up to some vegan friends.”

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Give peas a chance Well-established Belgian chicory and pea processor Cosucra celebrated 25 years of experience in extracting pea protein isolate in 2015 with the inauguration of a state-of-the-art pea processing line

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Cosucra

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family owned company since 1852, Cosucra’s humble beginnings involved the extraction of sugar from locally grown beets for markets in France, Belgium and The Netherlands.

Following more than a century of steady success, the company became the first to produce international Inulin from its production plant; this groundbreaking development resulted in the launch of Inulin Fibruline, a chicory soluble fibre that is tasteless, odorless, soluble and easy to process. Today Fibruline, in accordance with the EU Directive 2008/100/EC on nutrition labeling for foodstuffs, is a globally recognised dietary fibre that boasts nutritional features including fibre enrichment and calorie reduction; it is also a viable solution for less sugar and fat in products and improves gut health.

Having proven its capabilities within the processing of chicory soluble fibre, the company established its pea processing facility in 1990, with the launch of pea protein Pisane®, pea fibres Swelite® and Exatine® and pea starch Nastar® to the market swiftly following this milestone. With a quarter of a decade of experience in pea processing behind it, Cosucra is viewed as a pioneer in the world of high added value nutritional ingredients that are derived from chicory and peas and has developed a strong reputation for continuously finding ways to improve its highly pure pea protein isolate, Pisane, which provides high levels of nutrition and functionality to customers. In fact, the non-dairy protein is the sustainable and effective alternative to regular protein isolate as it is free from common allergens, is a protein of choice for vegetarians and is suitable for the gluten-free market. As a high protein food, Pisane also helps customers remain full for longer and lengthens the time between meals and is highly beneficial to the elderly as it is rich in leucine, which is involved in muscle synthesis, and also contains high levels of arginine and lysine, both of which are essential in bone health maintenance.

Further discussing the benefits is Michel Dewael, commercial director at Cosucra: “Pisane is a very pure pea protein isolate (90 per cent protein on dry matter), that offers high nutritional value and can also be easily incorporated in protein-rich diet foods and drinks. Pisane also improves the nutritional profile and overall quality of products, such as beverages, energy bars and biscuits, soups and ready meals; all of which are specially designed for people requiring a special, health or sports-related diet for weight management, performance improvement, allergenicity concerns and medical purposes.” This commitment to ongoing enhancements has led to strong partnerships with

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more than 400 food manufacturers who use the company’s ingredients in more than 1000 applications across the globe.

Increased demand With people more consciously looking for natural foods due to a rise in interest in sustainability, vegetarianism, flexitarianism and sports nutrition from amateur athletes, global demand for plant-based proteins is anticipated to grow by more than 40 per cent from 2010 to 2030. As such, Cosucra has made the strategic decision to develop a brand new 30 million euros pea processing line, as Michel explains: “In the last five years we have seen an increasing demand for plant protein. The growing interest in this type of protein

The company also optimised its production process to offer an extremely pure ingredient that is created in an environment with the best possible standards for quality, safety and hygiene

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is related to an increased awareness among consumers with regards to healthier foods prepared with ingredients that come from local and sustainable farming. More and more people are looking for alternatives to animal protein.

“One of the major challenges we managed to overcome during the building process was to not interrupt our production of Pisane; we also achieved implementation of the new processing line in only 18 months.

Besides investing in concrete, the

majority of the 30 million euros was dedicated to the acquisition of specific equipment and monitoring systems.

Thanks to our long experience in extracting plant protein, we knew exactly what kind of machines we needed and designed them to ensure the best results in terms of production.�

Focus on hygiene In line with its decision to develop a new production line, the company also optimised its production process to offer an extremely pure ingredient that is created in an environment with the best possible standards for quality, safety and hygiene. “One example of this is that when you visit our plant you will notice that all of the utilities piping is no longer visible as we integrated them into the pillars supporting the construction.

This is a big advantage in terms of hygiene. On top of this, all of our

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Cosucra equipment has been designed with the highest of standards in terms of food safety; the production line also meets the most demanding requirements for energy savings and the rational use of resource. With this investment completed, we can face the future confidently,” highlights Michel.

With the market now fully embracing natural ingredients such as Pisane and demand anticipated to continue soaring over the next 15 years, the future looks positive for Cosucra as it focuses its attentions on the already established North American and European markets as well as the burgeoning Asian market.

“Our company has evolved from a pioneer status in 1990 to a market leader in 2015. Although our ambition is to double turnover in the next five years, our ultimate aim is to improve the health and wellbeing of each and everyone,” concluded Michel. D www.cosucra.com

CGK CGK is specialised in engineering and building installations for the storage, transportation and dosing of liquids. Those installations consist of automatisation, storage tanks, piping and industrial insulation.

Based in Belgium, CGK provides its services to the food industry in Belgium, North-France and the Netherlands.

At Cosucra, CGK installed complete dosing installations with several storage tanks of which one was a 45m³ tank with thermal insulation and heat tracing to guarantee frost protection.

During the design phase CGK used 3D scanning technology to draw the new piping installations into the existing production hall.

CGK always aims to build reliable process installations with a focus on security and productiveness.

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A fresh approach

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Manufacturer of high-quality and innovative sterilisation and pasteurisation systems, Steritech, proves that close collaboration with customers can be an effective route to long-term success 24 www.foodchain-magazine.com

ounded in 1988 by Patrice Camu off the back of years of experience in the retorting industry, Steritech brings to market a range of high quality, innovative and process driven sterilisation and pasteurisation systems for the global food industry. Based in Alsace, France, the company is well placed both strategically and geographically to serve its core markets in Germany, France, Holland and Switzerland, and actively establishes strong global partnerships to distribute products to worldwide markets. “Central to our company is that we are a process driven company,” begins Global Sales Manager, Richard Mandille. “We always try to produce our machines based on our clients’ products and be more

process orientated rather than being machine builders.”

Initially focusing on batch retort systems, Steritech demonstrated its skills of foresight and innovation by being one of the first companies to develop continuous systems. This facilitates the growing need to process a range of flexible packaging solutions including glass, cans, plastic trays and pouches.

“Driven by our process orientation, this means that we really have to look at how packaging will react to high temperatures and pressures from our machines to sterilise and pasteurise the products,” explains Richard. “We are also very strong with our innovation, we always look to come up with new ideas and new ways to improve our machines.”

Steritech What really differentiates Steritech on the market is its approach to customer relationships. Richard recognises that as a small company it is critical for Steritech to work alongside its customers and offer unrivalled quality. “It is vital that during the process each product in a batch is subject to the same conditions and therefore result in consistent quality,” he highlights. “One of the ways we do this is by selecting strong European suppliers who we are confident with to make sure our machines are the best. We don’t believe in cutting costs to create better margins or to compete on price, our products are solely about quality. Many of our clients understand this as its increased reliability and lifetime longevity can deliver better return on investment.”

To illustrate the competencies of

Innovation The other significant example of Steritech’s recent drive for innovation is its Trilogy operating system. Developed as a result of customers telling the company what the main challenges of production are – notably a complicated user system and lack of training, which can operate in significant downtime and loss of time and money. “In response we have developed the Trilogy operating system, which we offer in three packages, in addition to the standard system, to the customer,”

says Richard. “These are a production module, which is a user friendly interface with shortcuts, tabs and universal symbols to make it easy for someone to operate and understand with less training required; the maintenance module, which combines a step-by-step, illustrated troubleshooting menu to self-solve errors with a preventative maintenance calendar; and finally a management module.

“This management module allows a plant manager to monitor and record everything that goes through the process in

Steritech, in terms of its approach to quality and innovation, are two recent product launches. The first, the SerialTower, was developed and launched as a result of awarded funding from the EU Eco-Innovation programme, which recognises and encourages energy saving innovations.

“The SerialTower delivers a number of energy saving, and wider, advantages to our customers,” outlines Richard. “As a continuous system, the SerialTower allows products to be fed through one side and out the other and therefore allows the next batch to enter before the last has been completed, cutting down on product waiting times. Once a product has been packaged, the longer it waits before being sterilised the higher the risk that quality will diminish, therefore its important that they can be sterilised quickly. Before, this was countered with more batch systems, but this takes up space, manpower, energy and substantial investment to operate.

“In terms of energy consumption, normally one retort vessel would have to constantly reheat and cool rapidly to facilitate the sterilisation process and this demands a huge amount of energy. With the SerialTower solution, the customer will have two towers, one for heating and one for cooling, and therefore eliminates this need to reheat constantly. We have also been able to demand less water by introducing a water re-use cycle to the process.”

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Steritech

terms of energy consumption, product numbers and so on. This data can then be viewed in a number of comparative ways to facilitate a process of continuous improvement within the factory. The user can also input costs of things like energy and material usage, to closely monitor and improve the cost efficiency of a process.”

As Steritech moves forward and looks ahead at a future of rising global demand for convenience products, innovation, customer service and quality will remain top of the company’s list of

priorities as it continues to grow. The company recently established a new partnership in Japan and sees further opportunities across the whole American continent. “If somebody approaches us with a potential new market for our products we are always open at exploring that market as a new opportunity,” notes Richard.

Over the next 12 months the company will be launching a new product line of continuous systems that offers similar process quality

at a reduced cost to allow growing company’s to access the expensive technology in order to grow. Again, this development grew out of paying careful attention to the customer demands. In the longer term, Steritech will be looking at consolidating already established markets and product ranges, alongside marketing itself and its unique solutions to expand and grow at a targeted 30 per cent per annum. D www.steritech.eu.com

T: +49-(0)271-35908-0 F: +49-(0)271-35908-50 W: www.siegthaler.de Here at Siegthaler we bend and flash weld butt rings from 500 mm outside diameter up to 7000 mm. The maximum cross section we are able to bend is 65.000 mm² (Carbon steel). Beside this we are using seamless rolled rings. We are able to machine these rings by turning, drilling and milling.

The materials we are handling are carbon steel, stainless steel, low alloy steel and high alloy steel acc.

EN standard as well as ASME standard.

Beside these rings and flanges we are delivering tube sheets and other components for pressure vessel manufacturer.

We are also machining as a subcontractor custom made products such as welded steel constructions or cast iron parts.

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The Welsh Pantry

A strong competitor Since its acquisition in 2010 by Indigo Food Group, The Welsh Pantry is now a significant manufacturer within the UK savoury pastry market

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ollowing five years of investment and production enhancement, The Welsh Pantry has been transformed into a well-reputed bakery that has merged the long-term expertise of Welsh Pantry with modern equipment and a strong commitment to quality and the environment. “Winning Blend Limited, which trades as ‘The Welsh Pantry’ was established in 1988, and has a strong heritage in manufacturing high quality pies, savoury pastries, ready meals and quiche. In 2010, the business was bought by Indigo Food Group, a successful group based in Bristol who injected a new lease of life into the company under their new management and subsequently invested financially into the business, bringing together a realm of food experience and a passion for high

quality products,” explains Alan Shaw, Technical Manager at The Welsh Pantry.

Strategically relocated to larger premises in 2011, the company has since further expanded facilities and invested more than £3 million in equipment. In fact, in the last 12 months alone, The Welsh Pantry invested £2 million on capital expenditure in relation to business improvements; this includes modifications to existing equipment and the acquisition of new equipment to improve manufacturing processes.

Equipment added to the company’s premises include a RISCO Mixer RS450, which has enabled The Welsh Pantry to produce larger volumes of mixes while ensuring few cycles and a more consistent product; it has also resulted in enhanced planning

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functions on site and reduced labour costs. The company has also added a K&G Wetter 360 litre bowl chopper, which has enabled the production of products up to 360 litre mixes from the previous amount of 50 litres, and also upgraded the laminator and flatbed, which has enabled the pastry plant to produce 3.5 tonnes of pastry per hour; this upgrade has also achieved 20 per cent production efficiency on the line.

In addition, The Welsh Pantry has installed a state-of-the-art X-ray machine in the high risk packing department, as Alan highlights: “The installation of the X-Ray machine in the high risk packing department towards the end of 2014 has been revolutionary both for The Welsh Pantry site and the bakery industry as a whole. Quality control procedures have been enhanced without the need to compromise on efficiency, and as a result of the installation foreign body

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complaints have shown a 50 per cent decline across our pie ranges.”

With these major changes in place, the company has effectively secured its place as a strong player within the bakery industry; a feat that is even more impressive considering the increasingly competitive nature of the business at a time when manufacturers are under further pressure to meet stringent demands, both in business acumen and innovation.

Passionate team As a 100 per cent privately owned firm, The Welsh Pantry today not only benefits from ultra-modern facilities, but also from quick decision making by a team that is passionate about food and business and is keen to develop further growth for the business.

Moreover, as a people-based brand, the company has been consistently working to strengthen staff through training,

work-based education and product knowledge, which not only boosts morale and passion for a job well done, but also ensures an increased level of quality in food production, as Alan notes: “By recognising the key to ensuring a high quality product is with production staff across all levels of operatives and management. With this in mind, the Technical team worked together to find ways to educate staff on how to better recognise acceptable and rejected produce, and how to pick up on issues in production and packing before the finished items are dispatched.

“This started with tightening of quality assurance standards using photographic images to aid production staff on the manufacturing line, with feedback used to identify where tighter controls were needed to assure the best quality finished product. Working with retail customers to generate photo

The Welsh Pantry standards that reflect the needs of the customer and key areas of the finished product that may require further visual analysis or testing on the line.”

Multiple contracts This commitment to delivering product consistency also ties in with the company’s focus on food safety and quality, with The Welsh Pantry achieving back-to-back A grade standards for BRC Version Six and achieving A+ in June 2015.

“This year, The Welsh Pantry was accredited with the Green Dragon Level 5 Environmental Management Standard, making it the first food manufacturing site in Wales to achieve Level 5 accreditation. The site is technically approved for several major retail customers including Aldi, Lidl, Asda and Iceland. Other technical achievements include RSPO certification and Red Tractor approval for meat used in our products,” highlights Alan.

This focus on quality and boosting efficiency while also keeping waste and mistakes to a minimum has resulted in a strong customer base for the company, which proudly manufactures products such as hot eating pies, slices, pasties, sausage rolls and selected unique Welsh ready meals for the regional market in Wales. “The Welsh Pantry produce a large range of own branded products that are sold through the van sales side of the business. We manufacture different size and weight sausage rolls in 5/8 and 20 pack. Slices come in a range of flavours such as Cheese & Onion, Minced Beef & Onion, Chicken & Mushroom, Chicken and Ham, Tikka and Balti Curry. We also produce pasties with minced Beef & Vegetable and Corned Beef, these come in individual and three pack multipacks.

The ready meal range consists of Faggots and Peas and Lamb Cawl which is a Welsh Lamb stew produced regionally for the retailers,” explains Alan. Core local customers include ASDA, Aldi, Iceland, Poundland, Tesco, Morrison’s, J Sainsbury, while its national customers are ASDA, Iceland, Aldi and Lidl.

Discussing a recent major contract for The Welsh Pantry, Alan states: “In spring 2014, The Welsh Pantry managed to secure a sought after contract with Asda, resulting in a successful launch of a savoury pie range that September. Throughout the development, launch and continuing supply chain process, The Welsh Pantry have sought to maintain regular communication with the customer and be open and honest regarding the manufacturing processes implemented

and materials used. This in turn has caused the customer to instil their trust in both The Welsh Pantry brand and products made.”

Following a truly phenomenal transformation and a number of sought after contracts under its belt, The Welsh Pantry has a positive future ahead as it looks to continue its trend of rapid growth through securing new business while also cementing solid relationships with its current customer base. D www.welshpantry.com

www.foodchain-magazine.com 29

Raking in the dough Following its takeover of pre-dough specialist Isernhager in January 2015, machine manufacturer Diosna Dierks & Sohne GmbH now holds a coveted position in the market as the only provider of complete dough production including biotechnology

P

rivately owned German company Diosna Dierks & Sohne GmbH has been involved in the food industry since 1885, when its founder, Friedrich Dierks, and a partner, established the firm for the fabrication of machines for farming and creameries. Over the years the company developed a steady stream of innovative mixers for both the pharmaceutical and bakery industries, two strategic business segments that it has retained a strong presence in today. Elaborating on the company’s rise in dough production is CFO and Head of Bakery Division Henrik Oevermann: “In the bakery division we focus on dough products, including

30 www.foodchain-magazine.com

the biotechnology and equipment for fermentation of dough and the mixing of dough. We are focused on both big industrial bakers and small artisan bakers, as processes are the same.�

With the remaining shares of Diosna sold by the family in 1997 to Multimixing SA, a French holding company that was acquired by Group Breteche in 1998, Diosna further launched some innovative developments like the Premium Range mixers in stainless steel and the Bottom discharge mixers.

Renowned as a leader in kneading machinery, the company develops each Diosna product individually to ensure its bakery machines are a perfect fit for the

Diosna Dierks & Sohne production process of any bakery. “As a typical German champion, we lead the way with regards to quality and always have our teams striving to improve the products we create. We also focus a great deal on service; we have our service structure with service hubs and partners across the globe, which makes us highly reliable. Ultimately, we say what we do and we do what we say,” highlights Henrik.

Furthermore, Diosna achieves an ideal dough due to the optimal mixing conduct of its machines, which thus results in a solution for all kinds of doughs. Indeed, with a Diosna product, the amount of dough or hourly output are not important for an ideal result; instead, these bakery machines obtain perfect kneading results even with challenging kinds of doughs like wheat or brown bread. “One product within our bakery range that I would like to highlight is the ContinoMIXX, a machine that has a patented solution to continuous mixing thanks to its inner tool, which operates in one direction, and an outer tool that operates in the opposite direction. It is somewhat superior to other solutions in the market and has the potential to be used for all of the food industry,” says Henrik.

Made from stainless steel, the ContinoMIXX has been specially developed for use with high quality wheat-based and mixed dough to mix raw materials into a finished dough. Thanks to its twin-screw mixing machine, a particularly smooth mix can be produced by the ContinoMIXX, while the twin-screw kneading machine operates along the entire feed length to create a controllable and intense dough-kneading process.

Not content with its already strong presence in the production of dough, Diosna took the strategic decision of taking over the entire shares of predough specialist Isernhaeger in January 2015, which has provided the company

with a unique platform to provide complete dough production. From the dosage and pre-dough preparation, the Isernhaeger products for pre-dough bio-technology, processing and the kneading, all the way up to the handover logistics such as belts and elevator tippers, both organisations now provide the comprehensive range of dough competence, putting them in a globally unique market position, as Henrik discusses: “Our history as Diosna has always been more connected to equipment and machine manufacture, with our revenue more or less linked to the sale of equipment. With Isernhaeger and its supply chain, we are now progressing into process equipment and bio-technology for fermented pre-dough.

“Looking into the strategic reasons behind this takeover, we now have a triangle of success that is comprised of an equipment corner, a biotechnical area and a process and automation area. Traditional Diosna is the equipment corner, while Isernhaeger

is the biotechnical corner as it has the raw materials to process the food on an industrial scale, while process and automation is all about the process required to specific biotechnology, specific ingredients and the equipment. This strategic triangle is not only superior to our former method of operation, but also an USP to our customer, who needs all parts of the triangle.”

Along with the obvious benefits of the takeover came the merging of employees, with 45 members of Isernhaeger’s staff added to Diosna’s site. “If you merge a machine manufacturing company with a biotechnical and process company there is always a lot to learn on both sides of the hierarchy,” states Henrik. “We are working with experts and biotechnologists and have also hired a number of dough technologists who are able to create new recipes and new products with the customer on a large scale without sacrificing quality.”

Aware that customers want the perfect product, Diosna is now able to deliver bespoke solutions in accordance with its clients specifications, as Henrik highlights: “We have had a lot of enquiries for integrated pre-dough and dough production as we are able to define the complete process. For example, two to three months after the merger we sold our first installation in Turkey, where a customer was interested in using our integrated technology.”

As consumer markets in locations such as Asia, the Middle East, Africa and America are shifting from rice to wheat products, the future looks increasingly positive for Diosna as it focuses on implementing its strategy to the customer by showing the benefits of working with dough experts that can deliver a turnkey solution. “Ultimately, we want to be dough experts, delivering consumer guaranteed best bakery products all over the world,” Henrik concludes. D www.diosna.com

www.foodchain-magazine.com 31

Oh my cod With an annual turnover of 36 million euros (326 MNOK in 2014), family-owned fish manufacturer Gunnar Klo has developed a strong reputation in the market for its high quality products

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Gunnar Klo

B

ased in Myre and Stø in Øksnes municipality, Vesterålen, Gunnar Klo operates in the production of whitefish, such as fillets, fresh fish, salted fish and stockfish. Part of the cod initiative since its inception in 1920, when Deputy Leader and Project Manager Kristain Klo’s greatgrandfather, Mr Oluf Klo began buying white fish in Nyskund, a small fishing village close to where the company is now located, Gunnar Klo today benefits from its proud history and long-term experience within the growing cod export market.

“My great-grandfather and his son, Gunnar Klo (Gunnar Jarl Klo is my father) brought fish from local fishermen in Nyksund until 1952 when my great-grandfather moved his plant to Myre to be strategically located on a better harbour as Nyksund was too shallow for bigger fishing vessels.

In 1970 my father began working and two decades on we acquired a plant following our entry into salmon production in 1987,” begins Kristian.

Indeed, in 1990 Gunnar Klo acquired another factory strategically located in Stø on the nothern tip of Langøya, an important receiving station for fish as it is near to one of the world’s richest fishing fields for cod, haddock and other species.

“In 1993 we moved our daughter company, Øyfisk AS, which is our fish farm for producing salmon and trout,

to the area around Myre. On top of this, we are also producing salted fish at a production facility in co-operation with Myre Salt Fish Group AS that is used by three of the producers in the harbour,” Kristian adds. Through the establishment of its daughter company in 1987, which currently has four salmon licenses, the 100 employee strong Gunnar Klo is able to deliver a wider range of high quality fish to its customers.

Discussing the reasons behind Gunnar Klo’s ability to deliver high quality goods, Kristian states: “We are located close to the good fishing areas and resources, so the fish we produce is very fresh. We also have access to a special cod (called ‘Skrei’) that swims through the Norwegian coastal area around the Vesterålen and Lofoten islands as they migrate to their spawning grounds. The quality of fish at this time of year is exceptionally good.”

In Norwegian Lore it is believed that haddock tastes best in the months containing the letter ‘R’, and the codseason (skrei) runs from January –April, making the winter months particularly

‘

profitable for fish manufacturers such as Gunnar Klo. During this period it is clear that not all fish are created equal, as the ‘skrei’ becomes highly sought after in the area. To qualify as skrei, which is identifiable by the tag on its dorsal fin, the cod must be fully grown and immaculate to look at; it is also imperative that the fish is packed and on its way to delivery within 12 hours of its capture.

High quality With the first skrei expected to arrive in January each year, Gunnar Klo is among the companies within the Norwegian fishing industry that work continuously for the following four months cleaning, grading and packing each catch; most of which is caught with long lines from small boats. Although the days are long and the work challenging, it is a highly lucrative operation, with skrei being sent to the most upmarket fish counters in the UK, including Harrods and Selfridges. It can also naturally be found in upscale restaurants, where those who can afford the high quality cod can enjoy the skrei’s delicate flavour and smooth, firm texture that crumbles into large, moist flakes.

As part of this increasingly indemand industry, Gunnar Klo is in an enviable position as it continues to deliver environmentally approved, high quality cod to a hungry market

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In 2011 SKREI became a protected trademark, registered by the Norwegian Seafood Council.

Increase exports “There are strict rules as to how you can use the skrei brand and its label; to meet these regulations we have a policy of being very strict on quality to ensure no shortcuts are taken. By using our experience in producing fish, we know temperature, for example, is an integral part of fish farming to control.

Moreover, because of our logistical benefits, we are able to produce fish and send the products out to the market as fast as possible,” explains Kristian. This long-term commitment has not gone unnoticed in the industry, with Gunnar Klo leading the way as the first in Norway to be approved by the environmental labels of requirements in Sweden and Debio in Norway for cod and haddock. The company is

34 www.foodchain-magazine.com

also approved by the MSC for cod and haddock.

Following efforts to increase Norwegian cod exports, those within the fishing industry have seen foreign sales growing by more than 60 per cent since 2013, with 43,426 tonnes of cod exported in the same period of January to April in 2014. These efforts stem from the Norwegian Seafood Council and the fishing industry, which have both strived to market the ancestry and tradition of cod in Norway alongside the efficiency and quality of the delivered products; a strategy that has resulted in a 30 per cent rise in cod sales in Germany in 2014 when compared to 2013, and a 70 per cent increase in the amount of cod eaten by the French in the same period. “Our key markets are mainly fresh headed and gutted, fresh packed products for exporters who sell our fish to the Norwegian market, the Scandinavian market, Spain and

Portugal. England is also a major market for us,” says Kristian. “We do also produce for the rest of the EU and some for the US market.”

Cod hotel As part of this increasingly indemand industry, Gunnar Klo is in an enviable position as it continues to deliver environmentally approved, high quality cod to a hungry market.

However, this recent bounty has led to the industry thinking differently about how it markets cod as fresh cod costs an average of 25 per cent more than frozen and accounted for only approximately 20 per cent of total cod exports in 2013. To increase this percentage, the seafood industry is looking to store fish live, which would extend the availability of fresh cod up until the third quarter of each year through the use of cod hotels along the coast.

Gunnar Klo With the Norwegian government looking to increase the value of Norway’s cod catch via increased R&D funding and increased quotas for live cod, the amount of live cod sold could potentially increase more than tenfold by 2020. To help the seafood industry of Norway reach its potential, Gunnar Klo and daughter company Øyfisk are supporting part of a pilot cod hotel project that was initiated by Andre Reinholdtsen, owner of Myre Havbruk.

The goal of the project is to find out if cod can be kept happy and healthy in temporary sea storage locations along the western coast of Norway, which, if successful, could lead to 30,000 tonnes of cod stored by 2020.

Despite the obvious monetary opportunities available from the cod hotel, there are still some challenges to overcome as researchers continue to find a solution that will lower cod mortality rates. With this in mind,

Kristian is looking forward to the next cod season while also finding new markets that are willing to pay premium prices for premium goods.

“Over the next 12 months we will prepare for the next cod season and

focus on getting more stable deliveries from the fishermen. We will also look into increasing our salmon production and invest in rebuilding parts of our plant,” he concludes. D www.gunnar-klo.no

www.foodchain-magazine.com 35

That’s a

wrap!

Budelpack today packages 200 million solid, liquid, powdered and granulated food products annually for customers who want innovative solutions and a forward-thinking approach to people powered packaging

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Budelpack

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amed after the town in which its history began, the Netherlands’ first co-packing company Budelpack was founded by André Nieuwkerk at his confectionary factory in Budel as a contract packing firm for Mars in 1971.

Since then, the company has developed into one of Europe's leading co-packers, as Peter Nieuwkerk, Managing Director of Budelpack, begins: “Budelpack is a group of companies that pack food, pet food and fresh products on behalf of third parties such as brand owners and manufacturers

‘

Budelpack has extremely high standards when it comes to its quality, most notably with regards to its stringent allergen control

Peter Nieuwkerk

who send us their products. With our series of packaging equipment and machines, as well as our highly qualified personnel, we pack the products and ship them back in consumer units; this is our basic principle.”

Having introduced more than 400 product innovations for food, pet food and fresh food since its inception, Budelpack has not only developed a leading reputation in the packaging industry, but has also garnered an enviable customer base that includes blue-chip organisations that own brands such as Wrigley, Nestlé and Heinz. In addition, it often works with manufacturers that produce items on behalf of other clients and direct retailers such as Tesco, J. Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer. Key to the company’s reputation is its flexibility in packing, with bottles, cans, standard pouches and cartons just some of the options available to clients.

Although there is huge demand for packing companies in the market, Budelpack refuses to rest on its laurels and instead maintains its competitive edge thanks to a focus on innovation, both in packing and packaging, as Peter explains: “Innovation is not only a key strength for Budelpack, but is also a key necessity to have in the market. We approach innovation in two different ways, the first of which is to develop packaging innovations for the market as packaging is time consuming, expensive and there is a big risk that consumers won’t buy the product itself because of the packaging. As an independent company that works for many different brand owners and manufacturers, we can spread the risk of package innovation across different customers, which means if a packaging innovation for customer A fails, we can still use the same development cost and packaging innovations for other markets. It is a strong advantage.”

This way of operating results in new and innovative packaging coming onto the market, such as the ‘Jiggle’, which Budelpack created as an alternative to shaker bottles that are shaken up for pancake, muffin or waffle making.

“The principle of The Jiggle is the same as the shaker bottle, in which the bottle is only filled to approximately 25 per cent with powder before the consumer adds a certain amount of water or milk before shaking. However, The Jiggle is an alternative as it is basically a flexible shake up pouch that you can also squeeze to make a better mix in comparison to shaking, which runs the risk of lumps in the bottle. It also reduces packaging material waste with 40 per cent and reduces logistical costs by eight per cent due its smaller size.”

Mobile service Meanwhile, within the packing segment of the business, Budelpack strives to create new business models for customers to lower logistical costs. For example, the company recently introduced a way of taking its personnel and machinery to customers through what it refers to as the ‘On-Site concept’. “We bring the people and materials to where the products are, which massively reduces the amounts of pallets that have to be shipped back and forth,” explains Peter. “In fact, it was in October of this year that we established a mobile version of the On-Site concept, where we have a mobile packing service that involves a wholly operational packing machine inside a trailer that we drive across the country to go onto our customers’ sites. Essentially, we go on site, pack the products, close up the trailer and then move onto the next address.”

Having visited 32 different locations in the first two weeks alone, and positive reactions to the mobile version of the on-site concept so far, the company anticipates this way of operating to grow in demand as other customers realise the huge flexibility benefits of this way of packing products.

On top of its factory and mobile on-site concept, Budelpack has further strengthened its logistical options following a partnership with FM Logistic, which enables the company to perform packing operations from any of FM Logistic’ 85 sites across the globe. “This partnership allows us to offer reliable costs during a project as well as access to 85 locations, which means that, with our mobile solution, our facilities for customers are almost unlimited,” highlights Peter.

www.foodchain-magazine.com 37

FoodChain THE BUSINESS OF FOOD AND DRINK

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38 www.foodchain-magazine.com

Budelpack

Aware that an innovative organisation with strong logistics is nothing without an excellent reputation for quality, Budelpack has extremely high standards when it comes to its quality, most notably with regards to its stringent allergen control. “From a consumer perspective, one of the most well-known and feared allergens is nuts; alongside this severe allergen are milk or lactose, wheat or peanut allergens. However, when it comes to packing nuts in a factory when we are also packing nutfree products, we must be absolutely sure that no trace of nuts will go into the area where nut-free products are being packaged. This is so people who are allergic to nuts can be absolutely guaranteed that the product they buy is completely nut-free; it is something they rely upon,” says Peter. “As a primary co-packer in our situation, we have strict allergen control because an allergen such as nuts or lactose is an invisible thing; there could be a trace on your coat, shoes or in your hair that could be transported into a nut-free area. To overcome this challenge, we have reclothing facilities where our personnel can change clothing in a clean or safe zone or nut-free zone.”

factory that all meet the highest quality and food safety requirements. These efforts have not gone unnoticed, with the company holding the FSSC-22000 certificate, SKAL BRC and IFS; it also delivers packaging solutions in line with both kosher and halal requirements.

Furthermore, to maintain its focus on quality, the company regularly provides hygiene procedure and law & regulation training to employees, with personnel recently completing a 1.5 year E-learning programme supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

This programme focuses on structurally improving, among other things, labour

conditions and production efficiency as well as pro-activity and active coconceptualisation.

Despite challenges in the market as companies are consolidated and food waste increases, Budelpack is certain to continue reaping the benefits of its focus on innovation and quality as it looks to create an ‘any time, any place’ way of operating. “To be able to perform primary packing services, whether onsite at our factory, together with a partner or while mobile at any time or any place is a key driver for us over the next few years,” concludes Peter. D www.budelpack.com

Focus on quality Indeed, high quality control is a major strength of Budelpack, which has a total of 32 different packing zones within its

www.foodchain-magazine.com 39

A neat package With the strength and co-operation of Groupe Guillin behind it, market-leading Sharpak continues to drive a range of innovations into the packaging market

40 www.foodchain-magazine.com

Sharpak – Yate and Bridgewater

F

ounded in 1972, familyowned company Groupe Guillin is an international specialist in developing and manufacturing packaging solutions.

Through a programme of acquisitional growth the group now occupies a leading position in the global market with 18 subsidiaries spread across 11 sites and manufactures over 8.5 billion trays every year. Based in the UK, the Yate and Bridgewater subsidiaries perfectly demonstrate the innovative and world-beating approach to business that has afforded the group such success over its history. Brought under the group’s wing in 2010, the Yate and Bridgwater sites respectively manufacture polypropelylene (PP) rigid thermapacked trays for the mushroom, poultry and ready meal industries, and PET (polyethylene terephthalate) and PET/PE (with a polyethylene laminate), for the red meat industry.

The core strengths of the companies within Groupe Guillin are very much the product of a smart and co-ordinated structure implemented across the whole network. “The group is very much focused on providing excellent service,” begins MD for Sharpak Yate and Bridgewater, Martin Taylor. “The group operates with each individual business having its own specialism. So Yate and Bridgewater have their own markets and this gives each entity its own nuances of focus. For example, our Bridgewater facility is very highly focused on making sure that the product has a very good sealing flange because more than 90 per cent of our customers there operate modified atmosphere packaging and therefore require a reliable seal. This is not a specialism across all sites but if another company wants to get into it then we will either help them do that, or they will sell our products. Basically as a group, we can provide a one-stop-shop

for our customers with highly specialised products and this allows us to service some major customers.”

Such a strategy is crucial for Sharpak and its sister companies to perform effectively in a fast paced and challenging market, and this is particularly important to the group’s reputation for innovation.

“All 11 sites across Europe share the same design platform,” explains Martin.

“This means that we can all share our designs and ideas very quickly, which allows us to progress together at a fast pace. Each company has its own design team and in-house prototyping facilities that includes 3D digital modelling and CNC lathe machines to rout out moulds for physical samples. We have spent a lot of time recently shortening this process so we now target to get a product from initial enquiry, through the design phase and to a prototyped sample within a week. This reflects the speed of the market.”

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In terms of specific innovations, Sharpak Yate and Bridgewater both present product portfolios that demonstrate a keen commitment to continuous improvement. At the forefront of recent developments is the award winning Sharpak Fortis range, which brings to market a variety of highly optimised products. Designed through a process of finite element analysis, every aspect of the tray has been optimised, resulting in a 20-30 per cent weight reduction and increased strength and integrity. The range has been designed in close collaboration with customers to work effectively within the most modern high speed packing lines used in food processing, and has a far reduced environmental footprint.

Another significant product, which Martin comments is gaining good traction within the market at present, is the Vista range. Utilising innovative

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We have made a lot of investment into absorption padding. These are important to lock away liquids and maintain a clean, presentable pack for consumers

vacuum pack technology and a shallow tray, the materials form a tight second skin around the product to provide a number of aesthetic, quality and environmental benefits. “We have also developed our SharpSeal range, which uses a single mono-PET material that can be recycled easily within the current post-consumer recycling system.

Continuing this trend for environmental responsibility is SharpLow, which incorporates mineral fillers in the material to reduce its petrochemical content whilst retaining its protection and strength qualities,� outlines Martin.

info@m-mes.com www.m-mes.com Quick - Efficient - Easy MMES (Mike Morgan Electrical Services) is an established electrical engineering and contracting company based in Bridgwater, Somerset since 1989, delivering 1st in class service to blue chip clients such as Sharpak.

Its continuing commitment to innovation and support when response is vital to Sharpak process and project management, ensures growth in its own provision, based on mutually beneficial relationship where responses are timely and a source of continuing improvement opportunities.

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42 www.foodchain-magazine.com

Sharpak – Yate and Bridgewater

Other innovations are: SharpTek, which uses ground breaking antimicrobial technology to reduce the impact of cross contamination and provide reassurance to customers and consumers and SharpPlus, which uses special materials to absorb odours and increase consumer appeal. “This was originally developed for the poultry market but is becoming more popular in the meat industry, reducing the cost of customer complaints,” notes Martin.

“Then for the red meat industry we have made a lot of investment into absorption padding. These are important to lock away liquids and maintain a clean, presentable pack for consumers. We made the decision that padding via the use of robots is a far superior solution to hand padding as it reduces the risk of cross contamination. Therefore we have invested to ensure that our entire range of trays are padded by robots.”

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Sharpak – Yate and Bridgewater Supply chain Environmental responsibility is a key driver to Sharpak’s innovation strategy at present and this further entrenches the company’s leading position in a market where recyclable quality materials are critical to continued success. Another major focus for the company at the moment is its work with customers into supply chain optimisation. “Since the recession, value has really increased in terms of being a driver for consumers,” says Martin. “This has been looking at the entire supply chain to keep the overall cost down and provide better value for the end consumer.”

It is clear that operating as a supplier to the fast-paced and ever-changing consumer market throws up many challenges, but Sharpak is responding well thanks to its committed drive for innovation and the robust group structure that supports it. Groupe

Guillin as a whole commits £20 million a year into investment and over the last three years Bridgewater has received £12 million to cope with demand. “A lot of this has been put into increasing the warehouse as the business grows and develops,” highlights Martin. “We have to make sure we keep our service levels up to serve the market. We are always investing into faster, better machines as well as part of our approach to continuous improvement.”

With a period of successful growth ongoing, the future for Sharpak, and indeed the Guillin group as a whole, is positive despite challenges in the supply of PP raw materials. “We want to continue growing with a focus on continued innovation and improvement,” concludes Martin. “We have been successful so far but we see future opportunities and I think a lot of the innovations that we are developing and what some of our sister companies are developing in Europe are key to exploiting these. It’s a real key strength for us to be able to share these innovations across markets, so rather than just delivering what the customer wants today, we can start focusing on what they might need tomorrow.” D www.groupeguillin.fr/en

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Cream of the crop

With a total market share in Norway of approximately 48 per cent in 2015, family-owned and operated ice cream factory Hennig-Olsen Is AS is renowned for the quality and fine flavour of its range of ice cream products

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Hennig-Olsen

A

‘

proud annual producer of 27 million litres of ice cream, Hennig-Olsen has developed an exemplary reputation within the Norwegian market thanks to its long-term experience in ice cream development and production. With branch offices in Oslo, Haugesund, Bergen, Mold, Trondheim and Tromso, the 250 strong company boasts a turnover of 100 million euros, which is mainly through delivery of products throughout Norway, as well as exports to Murmansk, Russia. Today the company delivers premium quality ice cream in a wide range of flavours to its target customer base – retail and supermarkets, kiosks, petrol stations and HORECA. The success of the ice cream in the market is based on the inclusion of quality ingredients such as fruits and berries, chocolate, nuts, coffee, yogurt, and syrup as well as specials that include egg liquer, Oreo biscuits and Daim chocolate bars.

Key to the company maintaining its competitive edge in the market is the fact it is a family business

Hennig-Olsen also sells ice cream in single and multipacks, desserts, yogurts, cake, sprinkles and sauces.

“Hennig-Olsen’s ice cream factory was founded on the 5th May 1924 by Sven Hennig-Olsen, who spent four years in the US trying different crafts and jobs,” begins Paal Hennig-Olsen CEO and Managing Director at HennigOlsen. It was in Chicago that Sven mastered how to make ice cream the professional way and made plans to emigrate permanently, however, upon hearing from his girlfriend in Norway, he returned to his home country with ice cream producing equipment and

a book full of recipes. “When Sven began the business in 1924 he sold tobacco, chocolates, fruits and ice cream.

Naturally, he developed the business over the years by investing in new techniques and machines; he also began to manufacture sticks and tubs apart from the scooping products.”

With Sven’s death in 1945, his wife Ebba took over the business for eight years until Otto Hennig-Olsen, Paal’s father, took over in 1953. From this moment the company underwent further development, including its relocation to Kristiansand, which resulted in steady growth and the company reaching

www.foodchain-magazine.com 47

national distribution and a market share of 25 per cent in the 1980s. It was during this successful decade that Paal and his brother began working for Hennig-Olsen, with a focus on expansion, the development of new products and the acquisition of new machinery; alongside this, the brothers were keen to build on the brand of Hennig-Olsen as well as its different sub brands.

Craftsmanship “In 1997 I took over as Managing Director; that year we had a fantastic summer and sales rocketed, unfortunately 1998 was the opposite with lousy weather and dropping sales.

This was a challenging start for a young man, but I have continued to develop the company ever since. In 2012 we put down our own distribution and sold 100 ice cream trucks; distribution is now through wholesalers to all channels, including supermarkets such as Norges Gruppen, Shell and Esso; kiosks such as Mix and the catering sector,” explains Paal. “In fact, we have

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about 55 per cent of the market share in the food service segment in general.”

Throughout 2015 the company has enjoyed a market share of 48 per cent, with many Norwegians choosing Hennig-Olsen products such as ice cream cakes, soft scoop ice cream, soft-ice mix and milkshake mix over competitors. Key to the company maintaining its competitive edge in the market is the fact it is a family business, which means family values, faster decision making processes, a mutual dedication to success and, perhaps most importantly, loyal and enthusiastic colleagues. Additionally, Hennig Olsen focuses on craftsmanship in all areas of production and regularly invests in new equipment and facilities. “We have seven production lines, a mixing department, our own chocolate production area, and our own production of ripple sauces and nougat.

We also have a cold store with 10,000 pallet capacity, an R&D department and well-trained production and technical staff.”

This focus on product development

Hennig-Olsen

and quality has led to the release of two new products, Dugg Frozen Yogurt\ Frozen Sorbets, which are a healthier option with low fat content, and Inspira.

“These products are a series of 0.5 litre tubs, with frozen yogurt at 1.2 per cent fat and 40 per cent yogurt and a fat free frozen sorbet,” confirms Paal.

“Meanwhile, Inspira is a series of luxury ice creams with lots of goodies inside.”

Examples within this range of premium ice creams include berries, peanuts and caramel, and cookie dough.

Innovations In 2015 the company further proved its capabilities in ice cream production to the extreme when it unveiled the world’s largest ice cream cone ever made at the start of the Tall Ships Race at Kristianstad. Approximately 9000 people witnessed the feat, with the ice cream measuring 3.08 metres from top

to bottom and consisting of 40 litres of homemade ligonberry jam and 1080 litres of vanilla ice cream as well as 60 litres of chocolate; moreover, the biscuit cone alone weighed in at 75 kg. Discussing the world record, Paal states: “After a lot of testing, failing and discussion, we succeeded with the help of an engineer with long-term experience from the oil-service industry who did the difficult calculations with regards to height, weight and creating the mould.”

Benefiting from the loyalty of the Norwegian consumer, going forward Hennig-Olsen will be focusing on boosting efficiency within all areas of operation and continuing to develop new innovations for the market. “We also want to continue enjoying organic growth by exploring consumer and customer needs before transforming them into new products,” concludes Paal. D www.hennig-olsen.no

FoodChain THE BUSINESS OF FOOD AND DRINK

To advertise in FoodChain magazine please contact: Sales Manager Joe Woolsgrove jwoolsgrove@schofieldpublishing.co.uk Sales Rob Wagner rwagner@schofieldpublishing.co.uk T: +44 (0)1603 274130 | F: +44 (0)1603 274131 www.foodchain-magazine.com

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Sweet success Northern confectioner Sweetdreams has undergone a programme of reshaping and now looks to the rest of the UK for continued growth

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W

ith a loyal following in the North of England, Choc Nibbles have been part of the Northern confectionery landscape for 30 years.

Originally an accidental creation by Dobsons Confectionery in Ponteland, the unique milk chocolate snack later formed the foundation for Sweetdreams Ltd. Matthew Stephenson bought the company eight years ago and the company remains 100 per cent family owned and managed as it sets about evolving into a nationally successful brand of chocolate products. Indicating Matthew’s turnaround, over the eight years turnover has increased three and a half times as it dispatches over 15 tonnes of product every week.

“The core product is Choc Nibbles,” begins Matthew, “but as we have developed flavours and ingredients the product range has increased. The second largest seller is Toffee Crumble,

followed by Choc Lick, and then we have introduced flavour variants of orange and mint. In 2015, we have launched two new products, which are Jammie and Posh. Our products are completely unique and can’t be mixed up with being anything else as we’re the only one doing it. We affectionately call it an ‘ugly’ treat, which can be a struggle to get new consumers to buy into, but those who have tried it, trust it and keep coming back.”

With a loyal brand following established in the North, Sweetdreams’ success has come from maintaining strong wholesale and distribution relationships, with its ability to offer high margins. “Of course we use high quality ingredients but from the way we process and the way we source to the fact that we have strong distribution partners and no sales force, means that we are able to keep costs down. We are very value driven,” he continues.

Sweetdreams However, having reached a financial plateau 18 months ago, Matthew decided to pursue a strategy of growth with the view to double the business in five years.

In the time since a £100,000 investment programme has been implemented to bring the company up to a point where it can deliver to a national market. At the heart of this have been new products, and in particular the Posh Choc Nibbles offering, which overcomes the challenge of the ‘ugly’ treat being an unappealing product to new consumers. “The Posh is an original Choc Nibble coated in high quality Belgian chocolate,” says Matthew. “The ugly treat disappears with a nice polish and shape to it. We had identified that it would be difficult to enter these new markets as a company of our size with our existing product range.

Therefore this product is very much part of the strategy to break into markets like discount and pre-packaged, as opposed to the traditionally jarred, wholesale products that we have launched before.”

The investment at Sweetdreams has been about positioning the business in the best way possible to achieve its growth strategy. “We have upped quality control and comfort infrastructure within the facility, sorted out the warehouse and of course brought in new capital equipment and machinery,” outlines Matthew. “Along with developing new products and packaging, this allows us to be far more reactive to the market, as we can start doing smaller runs and we can get into different distribution channels. We’ve also been upping our game with regards to quality systems and consultancy. However, the biggest problem has been getting the right people. It’s easy to buy machinery and develop packaging, but its is extremely challenging to recruit the best staff, but we’re nearly there with that.”

As Sweetdreams now looks beyond the UK North-South border it is working on establishing strong distribution partnerships to bring the product to market. One particular recent success has been to get listed with Bonds Confectionery as the first company in its three-for-a-pound range to retain its original Choc Nibbles brand.

If the last 18 months have been about reshaping the business, the next are

about deploying it to achieve growth.

Even throughout the investment stage Sweetdreams hit 10 per cent growth, and Stephenson is confident of meeting this target again in the next year. “It’s now all about bringing these things together and sweating the assets in a controlled way to achieve our growth targets,” he comments. “I made the strategic decision 18 months ago to

The Northumberland confectioner is taking sure steps towards becoming a strong player in the UK value confectionery market. A lot of hard work has been put into getting the Sweetdreams to a position from which it can grow and initial results appear to be positive. As Matthew concludes: “It’s an exciting time for us and because its such a unique product is exciting for our buyers as well,

double the business in five years and we’re taking small steps to making this a reality. It will be tough but I think we will get very close to achieving it.”

because we have something that can give them the correct margins that they can’t get else where.” D www.chocnibbles.co.uk

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Full of beans

F The oldest coffee company in Germany, J.J. Darboven Specialty Coffees, based in Hamburg, has devotees around the globe

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ounded in 1866 as a local provider of roasted coffee for German households, today J.J. Darboven has a strong national presence and includes 14 companies in nine European nations, mainly bordering Germany. The company roasts high-quality arabica and robusta coffees and offers 50 coffee selections including singleorigins, certified organics, Fair Trade, proprietary blends, and the famous coffee, IDEE KAFFEE, which is being sold under the J.J. Darboven umbrella brand.

The most popular other sub-brands under the J.J. Darboven name include: EILLES Kaffee, Mövenpick, Café Intención, and Alfredo Espresso, with the latter being the most sold Espresso in the German hotel and restaurant industry.

As recently as September 2015, IDEE KAFFEE underwent a comprehensive brand re-launch, with redesigned packaging and a new TV advertising campaign. “The aim of the re-launch is to increase the visibility of IDEE KAFFEE back into the consciousness of the end user. In

addition, we want to be perceived as an attractive and modern brand for a younger target group. At the same time we can highlight the particulars and values of the brand,” explains Frank Hilgenberg of J. J. Darboven. The new pack design offers a contemporary and trendy look that is gradually being transferred to the entire range.

Connected to the brand re-launch is also the introduction of a new logo in the form of a coffee bean. It stands across the orientation and attitude of the company and communicates the important issue of social responsibility, or the ‘J.J. Darboven Responsibility’ as the company refers to it.

In fact, J.J. Darboven is dedicated to conducting business in a manner that balances economic goals with environmental and social impacts on local and global communities.

From work initiated by the company’s environmental committee, to the programmes undertaken at home and in coffee producing countries, Darboven strives to make a positive difference in the communities where it operates and does business. The company engages in several cultural and social community programmes, and offers an endowment to striving female entrepreneurs. This award alternates yearly between J.J. Darboven’s German and Polish locations, enabling each to support entrepreneurship and ambition in the local area.

Strong brand Specialty coffee is becoming increasingly popular in Germany and what sets J.J. Darboven apart from its competitors in its market are the premium brands that it manufactures.

The majority of J.J. Darboven revenues are derived from its food service operation for hotels and restaurants, and its wholesale operation that serves supermarkets and other locations where fine coffees are sold. An important addition to the food service and wholesale operations is an enterprise that exclusively caters to offices.

J.J. Darboven is the market leader for coffee and tea in the German

‘

J.J. Darboven

Only through sustained action can we preserve the resources that we need, so that in our globalised world, all people can enjoy life

Albert Darboven, owner of J.J. Darboven

out of home market and thousands of accounts served indirectly by the national supermarket chains, the popularity of J.J. Darboven and its brands, and the strength of its name recognition are being leveraged to support continued growth.

The business is already working with highly regarded, blue chip clients such as Hilton, Deutsche Lufthansa, Sodexho, Metro, REWE, EDEKA, Tui Cruises, Mitchel & Buttlers, Kempinski, Fairmont, Air Berlin, and many others that underline the strong foundations of the organisation.

Alongside its food service and wholesale offering, J.J. Darboven also operates a small specialty gourmet shop chain under the name of J. Eilles. These shops concentrate on

specialty teas, coffees, chocolates and wines. In 2003 a new addition, designed to complement the other operations was launched. This is an e-commerce website (www.gourvita.com) that offers more than 3500 products, including a large selection of coffees and teas, fine delicatessen products and confectionery.

Its range is one of the most extensive available online, and the company prides itself on ensuring it offers only the best and freshest of offerings to its clients, which it considers to be true food ‘connoisseurs’.

While J.J. Darboven may have roots that start in the 1800s, it has thrived and prospered due to a willingness to embrace innovation and move with the times, as illustrated by the launch of Gourvita.com. It is positioned for continued growth, thanks to major investments in its enterprise-wide information system, the expansion of its central production and distribution facility, sales and support personnel, and marketing – all designed to support sustained development.

The company has also developed a multi-channel distribution strategy to provide clients with widespread exposure to the brands in a variety of settings, as well as ease of access to the product, and many tasting opportunities for ‘consumer trial by the cup’, which subsequently leads to demand for sales. The interrelationship between recognisable presence in the hotel and restaurant segment, the supermarket chains, the offices, and the internet is designed to increase consumer awareness as well as the brand equity efficiency.

The organisation is also keen to ensure that the new innovations created by the talented staff in its research and development operations are shared

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with the right audience of buyers and tasters. For example in September 2015, Darboven had a stand at iba - the world’s leading trade fair for bakers and confectioners in Munich. Its presence at RAKO Group J.J. Darboven and the RAKO Group can look back to 20 years of a very successful business relationship.

Especially in developing, creating and advising new product innovations RAKO is the partner to choose.

Seasonality and the associated need for flexibility are of great importance, especially in the food sector.

Whether sausages or ice cream - the products must be produced quickly and delivered to the supermarket shelf. The food specialists of the RAKO Group will provide you with expert advice when it comes to finding and implementing the perfect product for your requirements - regardless of whether this concerns digital or traditional printing solutions.

Two of its production sites focus exclusively on the production of labels for the food industry.

54 www.foodchain-magazine.com

the show was used to present the latest innovations and the extensive product and service offerings for the bakery and confectionery sectors.

In the coffee sector, there were several focal points including the Burkhof brand that was showing its new varieties and a fresh new look that more reflects its Bavarian origin.

New flavours J.J. Darboven also presented value concepts such J.HORNIG, the quality and lifestyle-oriented specialty coffee from Austria, and the classic Alfredo Espresso, which is already an integral part of the coffee supply in many bakers and confectioners.

The stand was rounded out by additional beverages - cocoa and tea - through the brands COCAYA and EILLES TEA. New flavours were launched, many of which emphasised

J.J. Darboven

Darboven’s dedication to organic and fair-trade products. The company has pioneered these particular areas for many years and has a growing number of products in the range. Both organic and fair-trade products are growing in importance for bakers, since they can enhance their hot drinks offerings

with these credentials. “Flexibility and individually tailored offers are at the centre of what J.J. Darboven does, so that with our brand concepts and our finely tuned services we can respond accurately to our customers needs,” added Frank. In fact, the philosphies associated with the fair trade and

organic movements were also close to the heart of Darboven’s legendary and visionary owner, Albert Darboven, who stated: “Only through sustained action can we preserve the resources that we need, so that in our globalised world, all people can enjoy life.” D www.darboven.com

Goglio Goglio is a leading, globally operating solutions provider with a clear focus on coffee.

Offering the complete Fresco solution, it is the company that knows most about the four most important elements during the packing of coffee: material, machine, valve and last but not least, people.

Goglio North Europe has collaborated together with J.J. Darboven regarding the run-ability of materials on one of its lines. Thanks to their combined efforts, a simple and economic solution was found that has since become the standard in the industry.

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Master crafted

With roots dating back to the 19th century, Aldaris operates as a leading traditional brewery company within Latvia and the Baltic states

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Aldaris

T

he year 1865 was a period of several firsts and great opportunity around the world, signalling events such as the end of the American Civil War, the transmission of the world’s first fax message and the publication of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland.’

In the same year Latvian brewer, Janis Dauders built the Waldschlösschen, or Forest Castle, in a Riga suburb. By 1906 the facility represented the most modern brewery in Europe and in 1937 the state joint-stock company Aldaris was established.

Today Aldaris is part of the Carlsberg Group, which became the sole owner of the business in 2008 and represents the largest producer of beer in Eastern and Northern Europe and the fourth largest in Europe. As of 2015 Aldaris is able to celebrate a century and a half of brewing heritage and presently provides a diverse range of beverages comprised of local and imported beers, ciders, long drinks, water, soft drinks and energy drinks. The brand portfolio of imported beers overseen by Aldaris for example, is comprised of some of the world’s most recognised beverages such as Carlsberg, Tuborg, Baltika, Staropramen and Grimbergen.

Throughout its history, Aldaris has continually worked to ensure that provides a premium level of quality and a brand porfolio that reflects the requirements of the market. During September 2013, in response to in-depth analysis of the Latvian beer market, Aldaris announced a change in strategy to focus of the production of craft and premium beer. As part of its new strategy Aldaris further announced the investment of €3 million into the reopening of its historic brewery for the development of several new craft beers, as well continued focus on efficiency

initiatives. Data collected by AC Nielson has demonstrated that the premium and craft beer segment is constantly growing in Latvia, for example since 2009 the craft beer segment has grown by 50 per cent and already represents more than 14 per cent of the total market.

Prior to 2013 Aldaris had not been present within the craft beer segment, however following the decision to approach this market the brewery was able to begin the development of exclusive craft beer in glass bottles and kegs. Commenting on the announcement of the development of its new beers, Aldaris CEO Veli Pekka Tennila said: “We strongly believe that consumers will appreciate the highest quality craft beer created in Aldaris historic brewery. Our analysis shows that demand for craft beer

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The art of brewing

ZIP Technologies, a premier manufacturer of brewing equipment, has been designing, manufacturing and commissioning automated, modern equipment for over 20 years. ZIP provides complete, turnkey brewing solutions for the brewpub, craft brewery and microbrewery industries.

The company is based in Hungary and prides itself on its spirited and quality-oriented approach.

Brewing equipment developed by ZIP is forward thinking, and makes brewing enjoyable and seamless, bringing to small scale the technology, consistency, automation and control usually enjoyed only by the mammoth breweries.

ZIP’s full spectrum of services includes: »» Customer-oriented equipment design and manufacturing »» Engineering plans and equipment layout »» Business plan for the brewery »» Beer recipe development »» Raw materials sourcing »» Complete assembling and commissioning of the brewery at site »» Personnel training »» Equipment warrantee and after sales service All in all, ZIP is a multinational creative company, that brings together people infatuated with what they do, with an enthusiastic and trailblazing, can-do attitude.

www.zipbier.com

ZIP by the NUMBERS »» »» »»

»» »»

22 years in the brewing industry over 125 operating ZIP breweries

world

all over the

31 engineers on the team – including mechanical, electrical engineers, food and beverage processing engineers 60 specialists (welders, technicians, electricians, fitting specialists) in the plant 7 000 m2 of manufacturing space

Aldaris is still growing and consumer needs are not fully satisfied. With the opening of historic brewery we see Aldaris becoming one of the best craft beer breweries in the region.”

By February 2014 Aldaris had received the new equipment, valued at €1.3 million necessary to brew craft beer.

In a press release published in February ˇ 2014, Valdis Cunka, Aldaris brewing master commented: “We are now on the homestretch and we will soon offer new exclusive craft beers to our clients.

In total we have brewed more than 30 samples of different beers, from which only three best ones were selected by beer fans during tasting. As re-launching the old brewery is a historic event for us, we will offer beer fans to choose the most suitable names for the new craft beers, like in 1937, when the names of beer - were brands like Gaišputis and Tumšlase chosen in a popular vote.”

The new beer will be made available in 0.5l and 0.33l bottles, as well as kegs in a specialist brewery, where most of the brewing will be done manually.

Furthermore, existing brands of Aldaris beer will also be brewed at newly re-opened historic brewery. Aldaris also plans to use Latvian malt to brew its special craft beers and is currently working with suppliers to develop the first experimental batch of malt to be sure of its quality. As such, Aldaris is placed to become the first Latvian

brewery to use Latvian-produced malt in several years, as previously it was not possible to use local material owing to the lack of a malthouse in country, whereas today Latraps will produce malt in Latvia. “I think that beer fans will greatly appreciate our beer brands produced in the historic brewery, because we see that more and more consumers prefer craft beer brands, which should be enjoyed slowly, without haste. The same trend can be seen also elsewhere in the world,” Valdis notes.

Further to the on-going development of its craft beers, Aldaris has continued to enjoy great success with existing product portfolio. During September 2014 for example, it was announced that the company’s Aldaris Porteris porter beer had been recognised as Europe’s premier strong porter beer, winning a gold medal at the prestigious World Beer Awards. “We are proud of this achievement because the evaluation was very scrupulous and the competition tough. A team consisting of several dozens of experts evaluated beers in a blind tasting, paying particular attention to nuances like colour, aroma, foam and taste,” Valdis says.

The brewing technology of Aldaris

Porter is unique, as it uses a special combination of beer ingredients including caramel malt, hops and a special degree of fermentation that is typical of the Baltic States. The result is a beer with a combination of bitterness, sweetness and fermentation that cannot be found in any other part of the world.

In building on the success of its unique porter, Aldaris has also announced the imminent arrival of a new 24-month aged porter during late 2015. Forty thousand litres of this special porter have been brewed and are currently aging.

Previously during late 2013 the company released a 12-month aged Porteris Ekskluzivais beer, which proved to be highly popular. With the upcoming release of its range of craft beers and its specialty porter, Aldaris is set to provide its clients with a premium range of beverages to suit all tastes over the coming months. “Like a wine, a properly brewed and aged beer becomes even better over time, getting a special taste and aroma. Therefore, in the second half of 2015 beer fans will be offered a unique, two years old Aldara Porteris,” Valdis concludes. “This will be certainly the first beer in Latvia having made such a long way from a brewing tank to consumers.” D www.aldaris.lv

ZIP Collaborating with the world-renowned Aldaris from Carlsberg group was a great honour for ZIP. As craft beer enthusiasts and an experienced manufacturer of micro-brewery equipment, ZIP’s team did their best supporting Aldaris’ intention to invest in craft beer.

ZIP created brewing equipment that would align with the high standards of the Aldaris product: reliable, with latest technologies and engineering knowledge, accurate in every detail and precise in every step of operation. Just what was required to complete the list of Aldaris beers with new craft beers.

It was a perfect example of synergy between two companies, infatuated with what they do and in constant innovation.

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A quality offering

Remaining committed to its values of quality and collaboration has proven to be successful for London based caterer Just Hospitality and a careful approach to growth is set to secure more of the same in the future

J

Follow us on Twitter @JustHospitality

Moni Habib Photography

60 www.foodchain-magazine.com

ust Hospitality has been operating within London now for ten years and, despite being hit hard by the economic crash in 2008, the company has grown steadily and committedly to become a unique player in the contract catering market, with some major global names in its client list.

“Before 2008 a lot of our clients were Icelandic so when the Icelandic economy collapsed alongside the global financial crisis, we lost 90 per cent of our business over night,” outlines MD, Dean Kennett.

“However, instead of moving on, we hung on with three staff and over the following years continued working according to our values, which are not cutting corners and serving fresh, quality food. We stuck to our principles and this has kept us in the game.”

Bringing on new clients in the legal and finance industries, and later tech media firms, the business began to gather pace and Just Hospitality moved to a new premises with a 3000 square foot production kitchen and office space and now turns out 800 to 1200 meals a day courtesy of 50 staff. Generating £4 million in turnover a year, the company’s core business is in contract catering, but supports this through events catering and commercial outlets such as

cafes, tearooms and the William Morris Gallery.

“We’re good listeners,” highlights Dean.

“Like any business you have to be able to deliver on what the client is asking and this has been central to our business from the start. We don’t have any red tape with a flat management structure, so teams are free to make decisions on the ground, according to our guidance, when servicing the clients. This can take time in larger organisations and opportunities can be missed so this gives us a competitive edge in a fiercely competitive market.”

Working within labour-competitive markets such as tech media, companies are pulling out all the stops to retain talent, and part of this strategy is to run free food programmes. A particular example of Just Hospitality’s ability to listen closely to its customers and offer a quality service is its relationship with social media giant Twitter. “Their brief didn’t match up exactly to what we were offering at the time,” says Dean.

“However, we saw beyond that and gave them a plan of how we would build a food programme for them. This has since been rolled out and delivered under budget and their management are happy to entrust in us that responsibility, which is a very important perk for their

Just Hospitality employees. This has lead to further growth and referrals to other clients.”

With regards to the company’s food offering, Dean sums it up as simply “healthy, stay-awake food,” and Just Hospitality delivers this with fresh, well-sourced, seasonal ingredients and menus. “Again we have to listen to our clients’ needs and deliver healthy, well balanced and varied menus with some treats throughout the week,” he continues. “We also hold the ‘field-to-fork’ value as core in our business and so we do a lot in terms of the provenance of food. In short, we work with farm assured suppliers, and look to them as friends rather than merely suppliers. Therefore, we embark on a journey that we both agree to work together on developing and improving as the years go by, so that

where we get our produce from, that we know the people, and that we understand their challenges as well. It’s a really wellregarded collaboration, which the clients like and everyone benefits from.”

This collaboration continues beyond supplier relationships into offering a diverse and technically unlimited food range. Born partly out of a need to stay ahead of fast moving high street trends and to take a different angle from its competitors, Just Hospitality actively seeks support from specialists within the catering industry. “A lot of big players will take on 100 per cent of the work in a contract, but we will happily give some of that away to specialists, which allows us to vary the offer to the client and keeps it fresh and different,” points out Dean. “Again, our clients like to see this collaboration with

when we do well, so do they. We also gain a lot of education from opening up these discussions, and I’ve taken clients to the farms so that they can see that we know

smaller suppliers and companies and it gives us a leading position.”

Aside from offering sustainable and quality food, both collaboration and

Ashby’s started life as a family business and is still owned by that same family today...

the ability to listen are core pillars to the company’s outward integrity and inward strength. “People are our greatest asset,” says Dean, “and we are soon to hold our third AGM to sit down with everyone and talk together about our goals for next year and how we are going to move forward.”

This exemplary attitude to collective thinking is enhanced by a smart and principled strategy to growth.

“By taking on contracts that we can see will give us a good return has armoured us over the last couple of years and this will be a feature of our next steps,” concludes Dean.

“We work in a competitive market so we have to grow in a steady and controlled manner.

Therefore, we are looking at consolidating our existing markets as well as exploring potential in Ireland as current clients are talking to us about other offices. Ultimately, we will be taking safe and sustainable steps to become a caterer of choice up there with some of the big players.” D www.justhospitality.co.uk

We have been trading since 1883, initially as a retailer and over the last 40 years as a wholesaler to the catering trade.

Now run by Tracey Willbourne, the great-granddaughter of the founder of HS Linwood & Sons.

The family ethos is still as strong today: Customer Care which is second to None, Family run business established in London: A Company where ‘the extra mile’ is much more than a catchphrase

Ashby’s supply big named commercial organizations, restaurants, independent caterers as well as private individuals in the City, West End and throughout London and its suburbs.

We offer a unique service to all our customers that a well established family run business can achieve, which is individual, personal, friendly, professional and prompt.

Our fleet of liveried refrigerated delivery vans are on the road from Monday to Friday, endeavouring to make all deliveries by 11:00am however, in order to meet the needs of our broad range of customers we try, where possible, to cater for earlier or later deliveries and can offer a second delivery service when necessary T: 020 7231 4568 (24hrs) F: 020 7252 3466 E: Sales@rsashby.co.uk 37/22 Crimsott Street London, SE1 5TE

What we do: Suppliers of Fresh and Frozen Fish, Shellfish and Speciality Products to the Catering Trade.

Why choose Us? Over 130 years experience of supplying the best quality fish products Products available across the City of London, West End and North London.

Website: Linwood1883.co.uk Follow us at: @LinwoodHS @1883Fish and FB: H S Linwood & Sons Ltd HS Linwood & Sons Ltd are proud to supply

www.rsashby.co.uk

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Top

draft

With over four decades of industry experience in supplying clients within the brewing industry, Morrow Brothers Ltd has established itself as a world leader in cask and keg refurbishment

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rothers Alan and David Morrow founded the company to provide repair and refurbishing services for kegs and casks within the brewing industry. Over the years Morrow Brothers Limited has continued to grow and expand its product portfolio, today providing a comprehensive range of containers, extractor tubes and snapcaps. “My father and his brother set up the business in 1969, as up until that time no similar such business existed,” elaborates Director, Liam Morrow.

“Previously what happened when kegs or casks began to leak is that they were sent to the manufacturer and exchanged at scrap value on a pro rata basis against the purchase of new ones. This was fairly inefficient and not very economical compared to repair and reconditioning. A further benefit of this, although this was perhaps not as considered during the 1960s, is that it is also a relatively green approach. The business has continued to grow through industry trends of growth and decline and today employs 25 people across three sites.”

Further to its existing business, Morrow Brothers Ltd has recently expanded its service portfolio to include bottling

operations, with the establishment of Morrow Brothers Packaging Ltd. The new business includes a new facility, based in Buckshaw Village and will operate as a contract bottling plant providing bottling, labelling and packaging services, as well as further distributing products for speciality beverage manufacturers. Much like his father before him, Liam initiated the establishment of the business in response to market demand, further solidifying the company’s reputation as a pioneering market leader. “The new business was set up on the back of customer requests from the smaller microbrewers that we deal with and supply casks to,” Liam reveals. “Within the brewing industry at present there is a chronic shortage of contract bottling. For example when you speak to the owners of most contract bottling plants, their capacity is full for the next three months.

Additionally, at the lower level volume the metric of 50-60 barrels downward, the quality can be a bit hit and miss. What we are trying to do with this business is provide a gold standard of bottling at that lower level.”

HSBC Commercial Banking provided £355,000 in equipment finance and a term loan to expedite the establishment

Morrow Brothers of the new venture. Morrow Brothers Packaging currently employs five dedicated staff and has been in operation for three weeks at time of writing. As a significant investment and a highly anticipated development within the specialist brewing sector, Liam is confident that the business will develop quickly in the coming months. “As a family business and SME wanting to grow in the region, the new plant at Buckshaw Village is an extremely important step for us,” he says. “Morrow Brothers Packaging Ltd will provide our clientele with a one-stop-shop for keg servicing repairs and bottling of beverages for leading breweries, including manufacturers of craft beer, lager and cider, that require expert care for their packaging and bottling process.”

New Zealand. Within the UK the present market is increasingly driven by the growing popularity of craft and specialist beers, which has in turn increased the demand of Morrow Brothers products from a growing base of microbrewers.

“We operate in a very parochial industry,” Liam says. “Customers will contact us after hearing about the company from other supply chain representatives.

For example, we had a visit from a representative of AB Vickers who had brought with them a head brewer and they were impressed enough to send down some beer on a trial basis with a view to send more down the track once we demonstrate that we can do what we intend to do. The UK over the past few years has been very cask driven by microbrewers, although there is very

revenue stream where they can control the margins, as well as develop an expanded brand portfolio.”

Over the coming years Morrow Brothers Ltd will continue develop its service offering and consider new investments that will enable it to further support the brewing industry. “The next phase will be to offer our own contract kegging facility, which is an obvious fit with our keg business. This will enable us to provide the keg while the customer supplies the beer, once the keg is full it can be delivered to wherever it is required,” Liam says. “Over the next 12 months we will naturally focus on getting the bottling plant up and running. As a family business we are able to move our strategy quickly and that independence also means that we are not tied into a particular supply chain, we can almost

Over the years Morrow Brothers Ltd has delivered products to clients across the UK as well as globally, particularly within Africa, Jamaica, Australia and

much a trend towards providing keg beers particularly in London. This is of benefit to brewers who are also bar owners as they are able to add a new

chop and choose and select what we feel is the best option in the market,” he concludes. D

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