Creativity and brainstorming are synonymous with innovation in many people's minds. Engineers and manufacturing professionals have a different view: innovation is linked with risk, and minimizing the effects of risk is the key to successful innovation.

"Faster, cheaper, standardized" might best summarize the prevailing wish list for plant spare parts, based on written comments from industry professionals in Food Engineering's 2006 Replacement Parts and Components Trends Survey. The fourth annual study of food and beverage personnel involved in spare parts ordering posed the open-ended question, "What actions could OEMs take to make you a more satisfied customer?" Predictably, lower prices were the most frequently mentioned way to buyers' hearts, though rock-bottom pricing isn't what they have in mind.

The connection between food companies and NASCAR usually only goes as deep as a decal on a car. A notable exception a few years ago was General Mills Inc.'s work with a Winston Cup pit crew to help improve line changeovers. The Minneapolis-based food company sent a team to work with a pit crew to gain insights into how they might improve changeover performance in their own plants.

A controlled atmosphere packaging system (CAPS) ostensibly was the what's-new element in the Ecolean Group booth at Cologne, Germany's Anuga FoodTec show in April, though for many West European liquid food and beverage processors, the company's entire line is new. Ecolean entered the commercial packaging market seven years ago, beginning in Russia and China and expanding westward into eastern and central Europe. Food companies in Spain, the UK and elsewhere are beginning to use the packaging system.

Koelnmesse's triennial Anuga FoodTec show in Cologne, Germany, spotlights Europe's latest equipment innovations. Among the technologies taking a bow in March was Shaka, the trade name for a reciprocating retort process that significantly reduces processing and cool-down times, particularly for high-viscous foods. Rapid agitation turns the container into a heat exchanger, evening out thermal distribution to the contents. In a comparison to static retort, vegetable soup in a #10 can was sterilized and cooled in 18 minutes instead of 7 hours.

A shiny shrink sleeve delivers shelf appeal for a new polypropylene soup cup from Huhtamaki Oyj, but the engineering underneath the sleeve is what appeals to European food manufacturers.

Creativity and brainstorming are synonymous with innovation in many people's minds. Engineers and manufacturing professionals have a different view: innovation is linked with risk, and minimizing the effects of risk is the key to successful innovation.

The connection between food companies and NASCAR usually only goes as deep as a decal on a car. A notable exception a few years ago was General Mills Inc.'s work with a Winston Cup pit crew to help improve line changeovers. The Minneapolis-based food company sent a team to work with a pit crew to gain insights into how they might improve changeover performance in their own plants.

The most nutritious portion of a kernel of rice is discarded during milling. A California processor is trying to make a business case for the byproduct by partnering with humanitarian aid groups.

As understanding and control of mixing and blending kinetics expands, technology firms are devising systems that deliver new benefits to food and beverage processors.