Articles by Derrick Teal

It only takes a few seconds after stepping into Vital Farms’ Egg Central Station (ECS) to realize that the company truly loves its egg-related puns. If there’s writing nearby, be it on a wall, memo or bulletin board, there’s a pun not far behind. They’re part of an ethos that starts from the top and flows down the company’s ranks to put a smile on someone’s face, even if just for a second. That idea of doing good extends beyond the facility walls to its other locations, the farmers who supply the eggs, the consumers who buy the product and, finally, to the planet itself. That visible commitment to the environment is why the addition at ECS was chosen as FOOD ENGINEERING’s 2023 Sustainable Plant of the Year.

Construction projects, like stories, tend to follow a regular, logical progression. Delivery systems vary, but they all typically start with a client’s need, selecting a project team, site visits, design meetings, groundbreaking and so on—but in the case of Hatfield North, the project began with the smokehouses.

April Fools' Day falls on a Saturday this year, so some companies are trying to get the most mileage out of their jokes by releasing them a day early.

Last November, the U.S. FDA announced that it had completed an evaluation of UPSIDE Foods’ cultured animal cell foods and had “no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion.” While the FDA pointed out that there were still other regulatory hurdles to overcome for cell-cultured foods could be brought to market, namely from the USDA and FSIS, the announcement was seen by many as an important step in adding another option to the alternative protein space—one of a number of trends involving alternative protein in the past year. 

There are many reasons for wanting to make a facility more sustainable. Arguably two of the biggest reasons are, one, appealing to consumers who care about purchasing from companies that align with their own values and, two, reducing operating costs.

A healthier lifestyle is among the many societal shifts caused by COVID. While there were definitely people focused on health prior to the pandemic, having to stay at home to cook and seeing what exactly was going into their meals day in and day out put a renewed focus on healthier living. This emphasis on such foods continues today, making the health food category extremely competitive.

Some years ago, the television show “Mythbusters” tested the “5-Second Rule”—a belief that food dropped on the floor can be safely picked up and eaten as long as it happens within five seconds. The team tested samples of wet pastrami and dry crackers by placing them on bacteria-infested floor tiles for two and six seconds, then did cultures to see how much bacteria formed compared to a control.

Nearly every industry is full of acronyms. LEED, USGBC, IMP, SIP, ICF, AIA, BIM, CAD, P.E. and ASHRAE are the construction-related acronyms I was able to prattle off without really thinking about it. But keeping straight what they stood for when I first started out took a little bit more time, let alone understanding which was which.

For our coverage of Fabulous Food Plants this year, we decided to do something a little bit different in honor of “plants,” aka flora. When we think of food plants, we almost immediately think of processing facilities, but there’s so much more to food production than the processing plant. So, seeing how plant-based foods are altering the ways consumers think about protein, we decided to alter the way we think about food plants.

There’s no doubt that the plant-based alternative-protein market is growing. While profitability varies from producer to producer, as a whole the market is growing. Markets and Markets says in one report that the global plant-based meat market is projected to increase from $4.3 billion in 2020 to $8.3 billion in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 14.0%.