Temperature is that one measurement that’s dictated by governmental regulations to prove that you have a kill step in your process. Beyond that, there are rules for keeping fresh food under a certain temperature to keep it safe both in transit and storage, and—just as important—maintain its quality so you don’t have to throw it out prematurely.
Consumers expect their food to be safe, and there are methodologies to ensure that it is. Quality is a bit of a different story, but it's just as important when it comes to consumer expectations.
Guarding against food fraud in the supply chain can be a costly, resource-intensive effort—but the potential effects of not catching it can be disastrous.
No question about it, sugar plants consume vast amounts of electricity, and with a lot of aging equipment, there’s no doubt that several motors and the mechanical systems they drive are probably consuming more power than they should—due to worn bearings and a general lack of maintenance. In many instances, motors are probably not using variable speed drives, and large inrush currents place a big demand on electrical utilities.
It also affords processors the ability to experiment with changes in batches or creating entirely new products, often with simply re-configuring lines.
Today, consumers expect to choose from a wide choice of brands and products—not just from the “center” of the store, but fresh and organic products from the periphery of the store. Sometimes new products are short lived and are designed to be that way—because consumers’ choices turn on a dime. Automation can help processors turn products around faster by increasing production.
In the engineering world, it has often been said that you can’t inspect quality into a product. Rather, you design and build quality into a product and then inspect to make sure you are delivering what you promise.
Clif Bar's Twin Falls bakery was named Food Engineering’s Sustainable Plant of the Year in 2017. The Indianapolis bakery has a different—although equally successful—story to tell.
Diageo will try to make its new Bulleit whiskey distillery in Kentucky carbon neutral, electrifying the boilers with renewable power as a step toward the company’s climate change goals.
Humidity control may be the last thing on your mind right now if you’re running a food processing facility, trying to execute a rapid buildout to meet increased consumer demands. But, as you race to adjust production lines, “dust off” old processing equipment and ultimately ramp up how much food you’re making and storing, dialing in your humidity control will eliminate a handful of costly issues that slow down production.
While it’s often been said that the shoemaker has no shoes for his own children, sometimes a similar thing can happen with a software company. Only in this case, InfinityQS, a supplier of data-driven enterprise quality management software, had an aging on-premises IT system, all crammed in together in the traditional “server room.”