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While not intuitively obvious, some processes lend themselves to having their control systems linked to a building’s control system, climate controls or HVAC. For example, a spiral freezer should be linked with process and environmental controls to save energy and improve the process. Other process applications that can benefit from further integration with environmental controls include drying, baking and other yeast-based processes.

Moving from an all-analog means of keeping track of process and storage temperatures can provide numerous benefits—for example, getting more robust measurements with higher stability, reliability and accuracy. In addition, you get better diagnostic information from the sensors themselves, and this information—coupled with temperature and other process variables—can help you get a better grip on your process and on maintenance, too.

With consumers more focused on health and nutrition, and empowered by the internet to follow the latest trends, food companies that cater to their needs will be rewarded, and those who lag behind punished by a growing segment of the market.

Fresh Express expanded its bagged salad recall to include many lettuce mixes and coleslaw with iceberg lettuce, red cabbage or carrot that investigators say are the likely cause of a cyclospora outbreak.

Since the beginning of June, seven businesses have recalled products that did not note allergens on their labels.

An outbreak of cyclospora in six Midwestern states likely came from store brand bagged salads with iceberg lettuce, red cabbage and carrot sold at several grocery chains, the FDA says.

NOW Health Group Inc. found salmonella in routine finished product sampling of raw macadamia nuts, causing a recall of an earlier lot that had been distributed nationwide and online.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced processors, customers and vendors to adapt quickly to a new way of working and buying. As just one example, NiceLabel has launched a program that offers free subscriptions to its cloud-based labeling and technical services to assist organizations that are involved in fighting or supporting those who are fighting the pandemic.
 

Loftware President and CEO Robert O’Connor spoke with Harvard Business School Professor Willi Shih in a live on-line Webinar entitled “COVID-19, Labeling, and Supply Chain Continuity,” to look at some lessons learned in the supply chain during the COVID-19 outbreak, which, of course, isn’t over yet.