Functionality usually takes a back seat or rides shotgun with environmentally friendly packaging materials, but that’s not the case with a new polymer film from the Australian firm Plantic Technologies Ltd.
Case-ready meat has replaced in-store wrapping for many products, and a new film provides another opportunity for centralized packaging in vacuum bags.
Tool-less opening of primal cuts in foodservice and back-of-house retail operations has come to pork, a year after Sealed Air Corp.’s Cryovac division introduced the feature to bags used in beef shipments.
Rapid movement can dramatically reduce cycle times in retorts, but controlling the force created by a heavy basket’s motion required years of additional development.
For an accurate reflection of trends in maintenance management and parts and components inventory practices, Food Engineering asks the front-line professionals.
Engineers have taken advantage of 3-D printing for rapid prototyping of tools and parts in recent years. Technicians at the German firm Festo AG & Co. are taking the technology to the next level to mass produce end-of-arm robotic attachments.