Food and Beverage Manufacturing Top Stories
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Field Reports

Brewery saves 5,000 gallons of water per day with new pump

Water costs go down and so do extra-strength charges in sewage costs

Wayne Labs, Senior Contributing Technical Editor

October 12, 2018

When a food or beverage processor begins breaking down costs, sometimes startling facts are revealed. Here’s a case in point: Widmer Brothers Brewery (Portland, Ore.), founded in 1984 and part of the Craft Brew Alliance (CBA), had been using a liquid ring vacuum pump to bottle its beers, but realized the technology was consuming roughly 5,000 gallons of water per day.

Food Engineering's 2018 State of Food Manufacturing Survey

Our 40th annual survey shows food and beverage processors have automation top of mind

Casey Laughman

October 9, 2018

The food manufacturing industry faces any number of challenges, both great and small, but according to Food Engineering readers, the future is bright.

Cold Chain

Discovering broken links in the cold chain cuts food waste, saves money

Some cold-chain problems require common sense, but others need some science-based thinking to repair

Wayne Labs

October 8, 2018

Tippmann Innovation of Fort Wayne, Ind. recently completed a cold-chain assessment for Wawa Inc., one of the nation’s leading convenience store chains. Over the last 60 years, Wawa has developed a reputation for the highest quality products in the country.

Packaging for e-commerce

October 8, 2018

Food Engineering editor-in-chief Casey Laughman and PMMI’s Jorge Izquierdo discuss how processors can make packaging decisions that help meet both e-commerce and in-store goals.

Tech Update

Processors use interleavers to speed up packaging of raw bacon

Meat processors are increasingly packaging raw bacon using dedicated, high-throughput interleavers and card dispensers, which dramatically increase packaging speeds.

Wayne Labs

September 28, 2018

Meat processors are increasingly turning to newer, higher speed packaging solutions that include dedicated interleavers and card dispensers that maximize throughput of raw bacon.

Supply Chain

Fighting food fraud with the right tools

Analytical and software tools make it easier to manage suppliers and weed out fraudulent ones

Wayne Labs

September 24, 2018

Severin Weiss, CEO of SpecPage and an expert in integrated software process solutions for recipe-based food and beverage processors, thinks PLM (product lifecycle management) and PDM (product data management) are two sets of tools that can help food processors avoid using fraudulent ingredients from less-than-scrupulous suppliers.

How digital printing is reshaping packaging

September 24, 2018

Food Engineering editor-in-chief Casey Laughman and PMMI’s Jorge Izquierdo discuss how digital printing is changing packaging design.

Automation Series

The challenges of upgrading legacy control systems

A legacy control system may be running just fine, but processors need to be prepared to replace it

Wayne Labs

September 24, 2018

Maybe you still have a legacy control system in your facility, and it’s been running just fine, thank you. But one day in the future, it’ll give you a big surprise when the ancient motherboard dies, and you’re left without a system.

Food Safety

Automated microbiological testing helps speed up determining if food is safe

The adoption of automated or rapid methods for pathogen testing should include some kind of overall assessment of potential benefits and risks.

Richard F. Stier

September 21, 2018

When it comes to pathogen testing, processors must choose from a number of processes, as well as whether the work will be done in-house or through a contract laboratory.

Food Safety

Cargill Meat Solutions recalls ground beef due to possible E. coli

Products were shipped to retail locations nationwide

Casey Laughman

September 20, 2018

Cargill Meat Solutions is recalling more than 132,000 pounds of ground beef that may be contaminated with E. coli.

On Demand Kelley Rodriguez, Editor in Chief of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods, will be joined in this 60-minute webinar by industry experts to help unpack the latest research.

On Demand Driven by climate goals, business risk, client interest, and resilience considerations, food and beverage companies are increasingly turning their attention to decarbonizing their production processes.