Food Navigator Asia Editor-in-Chief’s Guide to foodpro 2017

Gary Scattergood, Editor-in-Chief of Food Navigator Asia, has picked out six top trends on display at foodpro this year, to help you plan your visit.

Smaller Players Entering

The food processing and manufacturing industry currently has many newer, smaller players entering, bringing with them new ideas and innovation. However, these small businesses often find it hard to achieve traceability and audit compliance, as many of the technologies targeting these aspects of business are suited for larger manufacturers. This often creates a significant barrier, preventing smaller businesses from innovating and gaining full access into the market. In response to this, foodpro and Food Innovation Australia Limited (FIAL) have created a zone dedicated to traceability solutions, whose equipment and technology provide scalable solutions for smaller manufacturers. The Supply Chain Integrity Zone will feature exhibitors such as SmartTrace and AgLive, as well as a series of educational seminars relevant to smaller businesses too.

Packaging Seals the Deal

Packaging companies are usually limited in how they work, with the choice of either thermoforming or tray sealing being the only options. No more! At this year’s foodpro, packaging exhibitor Select Equip will present new equipment that allows for a whole new form of sealing.

The Platformer gives the food processor the ability to change between MAP, skin, fibre form premade trays or thermoformed Mono PET, sealed with (MAP) with a Zero Meno skin. The ability to easily change options reduces costs and creates plenty more opportunities for businesses.

Accuracy is Crucial

The issues around food safety are becoming more perennial, especially as issues like the Brazilian meat scandal put traceability concerns in the spotlight. foodpro will present a number of exhibitors who offer solutions to issues around food safety and monitoring, specifically in the accurate analysis of food items. Perten Instruments will have the DA7250, a NIR (Near InfraRed) instrument that can accurately determine a number of parameters in raw meat and meat products, as well as the Delta LactoScope FTIR, which can analyse fat, protein and total solids in milk.

Sustainability Success

There’s no denying the issue of sustainability is an important one for the food industry, including increasing concern with how to manage waste more efficiently. In response, foodpro is dedicating an education session to the issue of waste management, with Ron Cotterman from Sealed Air sharing on “Taking Action to Tackle Food Waste Challenges”. Ron will discuss how to help guide the development of food waste prevention and sustainability strategies across the food supply chain, and identify how to leverage innovation, education and collaboration to bring sustainability benefits to both businesses and consumers.

CST Wastewater Solutions (Stand S9, Level 1) will also demonstrate their construction and provision of wastewater solutions that can be used in plants. Their GWE anaerobic digestion technologies extract biogas from food, crop and livestock processing wastewater streams, allowing it to simultaneously raise water quality while generating methane to replace fossil fuels such as coal and gas used in production processes. This technology has the ability to change how plants operate, and better use energy.

Alternative Ingredients

The use of alternative ingredients in food is a common discussion in the industry. Gelita (Stand V24, Level 1) will be presenting their new study on Bodybalance, their newest collagen peptide. Bodybalance is said to have multifactorial impacts on various metabolic processes and function of a muscle, aiding as a supplement in increasing lean body mass and muscle strength, while decreasing fat mass.

Robotics

While the use of robots in warehouses has been commonplace for some time now, their technology has been largely limited to Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). The next era of robotics revolves around Autonomous Intelligent Vehicles (AIVs), who, as their name suggests, are autonomous and are able to plot their course despite the environment changing around them. Omron Electronics  will be presenting a session on AIVs, with speaker Chris Probst discussing how AIVs will feature in the future of the food processing industry. foodpro will provide the opportunity to learn more about AIVs through a dedicated session and insight from an industry leader.

About Gary Scattergood

Gary Scattergood leads William Reed‘s APAC food and nutrition digital publications and industry summits, including FoodNavigator-Asia, NutraIngredients-Asia, Food Vision Asia and Probiota Asia.

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