Innovation

How processors can use digital tools to adapt to COVID-19

June 5, 2020

Food Engineering Editor-in-Chief Casey Laughman and RizePoint CEO Dean Wiltse discuss the digital tools available for processors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19

Coca-Cola bottlers produce millions of COVID-19 test tubes

Plastic preforms used for bottles are just the right shape for test kit swabs

Rose Shilling

June 1, 2020

A federal lab helping scale up production of COVID-19 test tubes found a solution in the beverage industry: the plastic used for Coca-Cola bottles.

Pet Food

Packaging trends in pet food production

Packaging is king in the growing market for premium dog and cat food

Rose Shilling

May 28, 2020

Packaging has a key role in the pet food industry’s robust growth, helping showcase quality, safety and sustainability, especially for premium products.

Garrison Brothers master distiller Donnis Todd

Field Reports

Artisanal bourbon distillery supports its growth with top quality grain handling system

May 28, 2020

In 2018, Garrison Brothers contacted Coperion K-Tron’s local representative and resident grain handling expert, Shamrock Systems Inc., to help upgrade its current grain handling system. The system experts at Coperion K-Tron to help design a completely automated system that would enable Garrison Brothers to quadruple its production.

Refrigeration systems

No spiral freezer should be an island of automation

Integrating a spiral freezer with process and refrigeration controls increases efficiency, speeds production and saves energy

Ivy Arkfeld

May 27, 2020

Spiral freezers are often run "full-throttle" but they don't have to be.

The Allpax automated retort system featuring shuttle car transport and rigid chain loader/unloader, shown here, removes workers from the laborious and injury prone activity of pushing heavy baskets, top right, to and from and into and out of a retort.

Retort design improvements

Retort loading/unloading system removes the push-pull chain drive

A real engineering improvement, Allpax’s new design is simpler, requires fewer periodic adjustments and reduces parts wear

Wayne Labs

May 21, 2020

Real engineering improvements make things simpler to operate and maintain

How businesses and consumers are adapting to delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic

May 20, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced restaurants and retail outlets to adapt or modify delivery strategies.

Protecting against physical violence

Wayne Labs

May 11, 2020

While we can't pretend to cover in one article what an entire publication devoted to security does, we will look at some key pointers in keeping employees safer in the workplace.

Engineering R&D

Omnichain's predictive analytics inform decisions

Wayne Labs

May 8, 2020

Though relatively new, blockchain distributed ledger technology (DLT) applied in food and beverage can speed up tracebacks from days to seconds. One innovator—Pratik Soni, founder and CEO of Omnichain—is already taking blockchain technologies to the next level.