Wayne Labs has more than 30 years of editorial experience in industrial automation. He served as senior technical editor for I&CS/Control Solutions magazine for 18 years where he covered software, control system hardware and sensors/transmitters. Labs ran his own consulting business and contributed feature articles to Electronic Design, Control, Control Design, Industrial Networking and Food Engineering magazines. Before joining Food Engineering, he served as a senior technical editor for Omega Engineering Inc. Labs also worked in wireless systems and served as a field engineer for GE’s Mobile Communications Division and as a systems engineer for Bucks County Emergency Services. In addition to writing technical feature articles, Wayne covers FE’s Engineering R&D section.
As consumers desire fresher tasting food, the challenge for processors is to produce bacteria-free products while maintaining flavor, color and texture.
Food safety concerns require effective and shorter cleaning times. As a result, CIP components must withstand higher temperatures and harsher chemicals.
Today’s economy creates hard choices for processors selecting cooling and freezing equipment systems. But solutions exist to decrease energy usage and convert the reject heat of cooling to useful energy to heat water.
Evaluate, consolidate, concentrate, relocate, truncate, terminate and expurgate. These words describe actions processors have taken to survive the recession.
While obtaining optimal yield is a priority in size reduction applications, other factors such as food safety, operator safety and equipment reliability are key concerns.