< Previous30 Food & Drink Internationalwww.fdiforum.netSOFTWARE SPOTLIGHTfaces a skills deficit and a lack of suitable workers with the qualifications for Industry 4.0 in the processing sector. In order to utilise Industry 4.0 and its associated technology, there must be a skills transition, especially for key decision makers. One must invest in new staff and current staff to upskill them, so they can analyse and interpret data. © Shutterstock/ asharkyuKerridge Commercial Systems (KCS) ERP software will help you to manage constantly changing compliance requirements, manage recipes and specifications. Benefit from easy management of ALL your operations in one system, which is well proven for the food & beverage industry. Your business. Your way.Features include:• Stock/supply chain Management• Full Traceability• Comprehensive pricing and promotions• Multiple units of measure• Shelf life and best before date management• Forecasting facilities (including seasonality capabilities)• Business intelligence for trend analysisContact Kerridge Commercial Systems: UK +44 (0) 1488 662 000 | hello@kerridgecs.com | www.kerridgecs.comWhat to demand from food distributionand wholesale ERP software. The InternationalFood & Drink Event18 - 20 March 2019ExCel LondonStand: N1364Visit us atResearch from consultancy Accenture indicates that companies in just the UK food and drink industry alone can unlock £56 billion within the next decade by utilising digital technologies like those used to meet Industry 4.0 ideals. Certainly not every food and drink company has the capability or finances to buy and use all the interconnected technology listed as part of Industry 4.0, but cloud computing and data discovery platforms are proving increasingly popular investments as a starting point within our industry as essentials for the collection and sharing of data that is to be analysed to find business improvement solutions. Big data, the collection of data from both digital and traditional sources in and outside of your business that is to be analysed, and data mining are primary in Industry 4.0 to allow for more informed smart decisions, as every step of processing can be analysed. Ultimately, with more and more advancements into software happening every year, there is inevitably going to be a shift towards smarter manufacturing processes. Those companies who have embraced and incorporated these into their everyday operations will be in a better position to take those advancements on board, while those who held onto old practices may be left playing catch-up. With big changes on the horizon, can anyone afford to be left behind? 28-30.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 16:27 Page 3Food & Drink International 31www.fdiforum.netLABELLING, CODING & MARKINGThe release of a new food or drink product means conforming with any given territory’s laws and regulations. In the UK packaging is legally required to list a myriad of information from lot number, special storage conditions, the name and address of the manufacturer, necessary warnings, net quality information, ingredients and so on and so on. As on 2011, packaged food and beverage products sold in the UK have also had to comply with European law and list country of origin as part of their labelling. This is applicable for a range of meat products – such as beef, lamb, goat and poultry – as well as fish and shellfish. Also included is honey and olive oil and fruit and vegetables imported from outside the EU. As well as creating more transparency in the supply chain, it allows consumers to see, at a glance, where their products have come from allowing them to make more informed and, often, environmentally focussed purchasing decisions. Yet there are areas where labelling legislation is being ignored which can not only land manufacturers and territories in hot water but can negatively impact consumers especially when it comes to nutritional labelling. 32 Á© Shutterstock/ Song_about_summerPrecision PRINTING Complying with legislation whilst also retaining shelf appeal is no easy feat for food makers. Fortunately, there’s a range of high-quality printing solutions available to ensure precision and reliability. 31-33.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:48 Page 1For the last ten years, consumer organisations have been calling on the EU Commission to publish nutrient profiles on food and drink products. Far from a health crusade alone, there was a legal precedent for these demands. Back in 2006, the EU adopted legalisation providing for these profiles, meaning the Commission was required by law to publish them in 2009. This year, however, the Commission has initiated an evaluation of the Claims Regulation which will examine whether the profiles are still needed. The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) argues that nutrient profiles would prevent the food industry from making unhealthy foods and drinks appear healthier than they are. It would, they say, restrict the use of potentially misleading claims such as “source of calcium” or “boosts the immune system” on foods which are high in sugar and/or fat. Last year, BEUC and eleven of its member organisations identified numerous examples of unhealthy foods being marketed as healthy across the EU. “Consumers have been misled by countless claims which disguise unhealthy foods as healthy options,” said Monique Goyens, Director General of BEUC. “The Commission could have stopped the tricks 10 years ago, had it fulfilled its duties. This delay is all the more unacceptable as weight issues are soaring in Europe. More than half of Europeans are overweight and run higher risks to develop diseases such as diabetes. “Because appealing messages can strongly influence consumers when they buy foods or drinks, only healthy products deserve a claim. Nutrient profiles need to be adopted urgently to enable consumers to make healthier choices. Consumer organisations are waiting for the EU Commission to publish a report on this issue before it 32 Food & Drink Internationalwww.fdiforum.netLABELLING, CODING & MARKING© Shutterstock/ Christophe TestiCobalt’s Nexus 20 Printer Applicator labels 80 packs a minute without the need for compressed air Award-winning Cobalt Systems, the market leading Print and Apply specialists introduce the Nexus 20 All Electric Shrink Wrap Pack Applicator. Cobalt, who have been praised by several blue-chip manufacturers for their partner approach to labelling challenges, are convinced the new applicator is unique in the market. Delivering speeds of 80 packs per minute, the highly accurate machine delivers real-time front of pack labelling with no need for compressed air, speed synchronisation or special conveyor systems, reducing the capital costs of implementation and ensuring lowest cost of ownership. The GS1 compliant technology, is packed with clever, yet simple to use features. With an industry best 3-year warranty, no wonder leading manufacturers have bought into the Cobalt way of thinking. For more information, please visit www.cobaltis.co.uk/systems.31-33.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:48 Page 2Food & Drink International 33www.fdiforum.netLABELLING, CODING & MARKING© Shutterstock/ Gumpanatleaves office at the time of the European elections.” As well as complying with legislation, labelling is becoming of greater importance to consumers. Research has found that consumers are becoming more attracted to country of origin labelling or increasingly transparent ingredients lists as consumers look to discover hidden sugars in their diet or boycott certain ingredients such as palm oil. But food and drink labels are still complicated for consumers who can often find the information dense and difficult to decipher. It’s not just of concern for consumers either, with a recent government consultation launched exploring the required changes needed to be made to food labels should the UK crash out of the EU without a Brexit deal. Suffice it to say, manufacturers need precise legible labelling that also fits within their packaging profile and complies with legislation. To accomplish this, they require printers which can produce clear and precise labels at a high rate of output. For manufacturers, there’s a variety of different printing options at their disposal depending on the requirements. Continuous inkjet (CIJ), for example, can be used to print most materials regardless of porosity, size, shape and texture, making it an ideal all-rounder. Typically, CIJ is used for dates, times, batch codes, product names and logos and is particularly useful for printing traceability data and complying with strict industry legislation. Thermal inkjet (TIJ), on the other hand, is primarily used for coding product identification onto porous substrates, making it perfect for shelf-ready packaging which are seen up and down supermarket shelves. Despite offering indelible codes and a high product speed, thermal inkjet is often overlooked in favour of CIJ and thermal transfer. But with its lower associated costs and high production quality, speed and flexibility – as well as offering no smudges or scratches – TIJ is definitely worth considering. Another printing solution open to food manufacturers and packaging specialists is laser coding. This offers a fast non-contact solution for permanent food packaging applications as well as large character coding onto secondary packaging such as carboard cartons, boxes and crates. There’s by no means a ‘one size fits all’ printing solution that will meet a manufacturers labelling, coding and marking needs. Often, it’s a combination of two or more in order to retain a high-quality packaging aesthetic, comply with legislation and resonate with the consumers. Premium chocolate maker sees massive labour-saving benefit of TIJ system Suffolk chocolate maker Pump Street Chocolate demonstrates that automating the process of manual date-coding by installing a RF Lite feeding system with iJet thermal inkjet (TIJ) coder has made a huge difference on production efficiency. When the Orford-based company began to produce smaller 20g bars to complement the existing range of 70g bars, it soon became clear that automated coding was a necessity. The full-size bars use a zipper-resealable sachet printed in-house with a batch code and best-before date, which also acts as a tamper-evident seal. The smaller tear-open sachets for the 20g bars, typically destined for the coffee-shop and hotel market, required a different solution. “We were literally writing the sell by date on to the sachet by hand,” says Customer Manager Sally Jones. “Every month we make batches of around 4,000 bars, and it was taking up hours of our time. Now, in 20 minutes or so, the Rotech machine prints what it would have taken us three days to write by hand.” Rotech’s RF Lite feeding system is ideal for small-scale food producers like Pump Street Chocolate which are automating for the first time. It pulls individual packs from a hopper, positions them ready for coding with the iJet TIJ system, before transferring them to a stack of coded sachets. The feeding system has a linear speed of 60m per minute. TIJ coding is often unjustly overlooked in favour of other coding technologies such as thermal transfer and continuous inkjet (CIJ). Rotech highlights the lower cost of TIJ, when compared with CIJ on the basis of cost per 1,000 codes. For more information, visit www.rotechmachines.com. 31-33.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:48 Page 334 Food & Drink Internationalwww.fdiforum.netSORTING & WEIGHING© Shutterstock/ ItsananVital in every step 34-37.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:51 Page 1Food & Drink International 35www.fdiforum.netSorting and weighing are crucial steps for ensuring the quality, consistency and uniformity, as well as in enhancing the health and safety, of all food products. As the food industry continues to grow - creating more demand, a need for increased productivity and efficiency - and legal requirements continue to be stringent on accurate labelling while supermarkets and the food service sector insist on more precise specifications, effective sorting and weighing are key to success. Weighing is vital in every step of the industry’s supply chain, from production to packaging to transportation. Effective and accurate weighing not only ensures measurements are precise, but the data it provides extends in its use to be helpful in the control, monitoring and documentation of products as they move through production. High accuracy scales like those supplied and manufactured by Applied Weighing International are particularly beneficial for food and drink firms as they can increase revenue by minimising costly giveaway and waste (which is, of course, a huge problem in the food industry), reduce the chance of overweight shipments, and they help make sure orders are invoiced and managed accurately. As the weighing and manual handling of ingredients can cost up to 5% of manufacturers’ turnover each year, following best practice and finding the best weighing processes for one’s business as technology progresses are essential. Following best practice is also important as scales face all sorts of environmental influences and a variety of temperatures which can affect weight reading accuracy and cause rust, cracks and pitting - problems one must protect weighing equipment against or face downtime for repairs and replacements. A rigorous cleaning regime is crucial for maintaining weighing equipment, which is particularly the case in low temperature production zones as liquids and food particles freeze and stick to scales raising contamination risks and effecting the accuracy of weighing. As scales are susceptible to measurement inaccuracy, regular calibration is also important for true readings, along with factoring in the difference between a food product’s normal weight and its frozen weight when calibrating scales. As incorrectly labelled weights and contamination discoveries can cause costly recalls, following best practice in hygiene and calibration is invaluable. While the use of check-weighers, conveyor scales, truck scales, bench and floor scales are fully established in the food industry, how one weighs products and ingredients is developing and changing with new innovations in automation, mirroring the wider industry trend. Gaining traction, due to reducing cost of technology in weighing, is the use of robotic ingredient handlers as a replacement for manual workers. A major step forward in the use of robots for weighing occurred last year when OAL and the University of Lincoln won £900,000 funding from the UK government’s Innovate UK scheme for a robotic ingredient 36 Á© Shutterstock/ B Brown34-37.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:51 Page 236 Food & Drink Internationalwww.fdiforum.nethandling project that aims to reduce the costs and remove the human errors involved in ingredient handling and weighing by implementing robots. In replacing manual workers, there is a recognised potential for one to increase control, accuracy, and consistency in weighing, as well as worker safety, which will in turn effect factory efficiency and product quality. Robotic micro ingredient weighing for example is a highly useful option for food manufacturers, as found by OAL, when used to weigh powders that present accuracy risks and health and safety risks to workers when weighed manually in what are often dusty environments. Unlike humans, robots can weigh out to within an accuracy of 1 gram with no cross contamination. While using robots to measure powdered ingredients has been a success, more work is said to be needed for robots coming into contact with sticky foodstuffs amongst other kinds. With the shortage of labour in the industry, along with the rising cost of labour, robotic ingredient handling removes the need for human intervention in the weighing process, allowing companies to reduce labour costs and boost margins. Multi-head weighers are also readily available as an alternative to manual weighing and are receiving more attention due to their ability to escalate production efficiency, output and reduce giveaway, though the relatively expensive installation and maintenance cost of multi-head weighers is creating caution. Automation is also becoming increasingly more important in optimising sorting. Replacing the inefficient and less accurate limited process of using the human eye, automated sensor-based optical sorters, for example, are already being used to determine food quality by colour and work to remove unwanted raw materials and food products such as those with rot, contaminants, damage or defects to offer a safer and higher quality product that meets strict standards. Rising technology in sorting sees the food sorter go beyond separating the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ to a method which can optimise product use using AI, which offers greater control over the sorting process and further reduces the billions of tonnes of food waste that are created globally as a result of inefficient sorting and grading while increasing yields. For instance sorting processes making use of AI can decide a product may not be suitable for one particular use, but is for another – a vegetable for instance may not have the suitable aesthetic for a salad, but is fine for a sauce, or a potato may not be the right shape or size for consistent chips and would create a large amount of waste if used, but might be fine for crisps or be suitable to be mashed.© Shutterstock/ Scharfsinn34-37.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:51 Page 3Food & Drink International 37www.fdiforum.net© Shutterstock / Vladimir NenezicSORTING & WEIGHINGT: +44 (0) 118 946 1900 E: sales@appliedweighing.co.ukwww.appliedweighing.co.ukFOR GENERAL, PROCESS, PHARMACEUTICAL & FOOD WEIGHING APPLICATIONSLoad CellsSilo, Tank & Vessel SystemsWeight Indicators & Control SystemsPlatform ScalesDrum FillingSystemsDynamic CheckWeighersThe UK’s leading load cell & process weighing systemmanufacturer. When you use any product fromApplied Weighing you will have absolute accuracyand total peace of mind. ComprehensiveNational ServiceOrganisationAccurate weighing - whatever your industryMANUFACTURED IN THE UK34-37.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:51 Page 4ordinated by the event organisers Fresh Montgomery and the Packaging Collective, as well as The Pro2Pac Excellence Awards will shine a light on the future of packaging innovation. In addition, to ensure continual relevant innovation, Pro2Pac 2019 has announced a collaboration with five industry experts to support the creation of forward-thinking content, products and solutions being showcased at the biennial event. The “Ambassadors” include industry insiders Natalia Agathou, Business Advice Manager of Advance London, David Harding-Brown, Packaging, Branding & Sustainability Especially designed for food & drink businesses looking to be inspired by new concepts, innovative solutions & designs, Pro2Pac will feature 120 suppliers including names such as Tetra Pak, Adpak Machinery Systems, Ilpra Systems UK and Ravenwood Packaging. International representation for 2019 will include suppliers and solutions providers from Turkey, China, Russia, Sweden, Poland, India and Germany. The event will offer a full schedule of free-to-attend added value attractions such as seminars, networking opportunities and workshops. An impressive array of experts will lead debates on key issues such as sustainability, plastics, global packaging trends and Brexit on the Outside the Box Stage. Speakers will include Dick Searle, Chairman of the Packaging Federation and Andrew Large, Director General of CPI Europe, and many others. Awards including the Pro2Pac Student Design Challenge, jointly co-38 Food & Drink InternationalPRO2PACConsultant; Sanjay Patel, Founding Partner of The Packaging Collective and Ian Crosby, Business Development Director of March Foods. Taking place alongside IFE (The International Food & Drink Event), Pro2Pac is the meeting place for everyone in the food & drink supply chain - an influential biennial gathering of producers, manufacturers, technologists and design specialists. Benjamin Punchard, Global Packaging Insights Director at Mintel, said: “A great chance to see packaging innovation at Pro2Pac and then experience that packaging at IFE! Engaging stands and a great speaker programme.” Revealing the best of manufacturing innovation, packaging solutions and printing & labelling products, you can register for your free entrance ticket to Pro2Pac, co-located with IFE, via the website www.pro2pac.co.uk or get involved on social media @Pro2Pac. Don’t forget to use #Pro2Pac19.Pro2Pac 2019 Pro2Pac, the complete processing & packaging event for the food & drink industry provides an unrivalled opportunity for brands to differentiate their company’s offering by finding the latest innovations in packaging, processing and printing all in one place. 38-39.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:53 Page 1Food & Drink International 39www.fdiforum.netPRO2PACFlowcrete Taking the spotlight on Flowcrete’s stand at Pro2Pac will be the antibacterial polyurethane flooring range Flowfresh, which combines the strength, durability and resilience of polyurethane resin with the natural cleaning power of Polygiene®. The Flowfresh range can maintain a hygienic, slip resistant and easy to clean finish for an extended period, even with daily exposure to steam cleaning, hot oils, blood, sugar solutions and extreme temperatures inherent to the food and beverage industry. To minimise the presence of bacteria, and reduce the likelihood of contamination, every Flowfresh floor includes the antibacterial agent Polygiene®, a silver-ion additive that can eliminate up to 99.9% of bacteria. Flowfresh meets the ISO 22196 standard, which measures a surface’s antibacterial effectiveness on plastics and non-porous surfaces. Thanks to Flowfresh also being HACCP International certified for its hygiene properties, businesses implementing a HACCP Food Safety Program can rest assured that a Flowfresh floor will meet the high standards of the HACCP guidelines. Tel: +44(0) 1270 753000. Web: www.flowcrete.co.uk Email: ukweb@flowcrete.com Stand: N1142Pro2Pac takes place between 18-20 March at ExCeL London Kerridge Commercial Systems (KCS) ERP software will help you to manage constantly changing compliance requirements, manage recipes and specifications. Benefit from easy management of ALL your operations in one system, which is well proven for the food & beverage industry. Your business. Your way.Features include:• Stock/supply chain Management• Full Traceability• Comprehensive pricing and promotions• Multiple units of measure• Shelf life and best before date management• Forecasting facilities (including seasonality capabilities)• Business intelligence for trend analysisContact Kerridge Commercial Systems: UK +44 (0) 1488 662 000 | hello@kerridgecs.com | www.kerridgecs.comWhat to demand from food distributionand wholesale ERP software. The InternationalFood & Drink Event18 - 20 March 2019ExCel LondonStand: N1364Visit us at38-39.qxp_Layout 1 28/01/2019 09:53 Page 2Next >