2025 Agenda

Speakers

Diving into Campbell’s $160M Goldfish Cracker Plant Expansion

With the Goldfish cracker brand recently surpassing $1 billion in annual sales, The Campbell’s Company launched Project Finn, a $160 million initiative to add 100,000 sq. ft. to its Richmond, Utah bakery. Doubling production capacity, the project set new technology standards for existing and future lines. The company also sponsored an onsite flour mill to ensure ingredient freshness and reduce carbon emissions. Join us at FA&M to hear from Campbell’s experts how the facility produces up to 1,500 Goldfish crackers per minute, leveraging cutting-edge technology, embracing flexibility and fostering sustainability.

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Food Safe Facility Drainage Design

Adopting food safety best practices is important in all aspects of food and beverage manufacturing, and achieving the highest level of evidence-based food safety is imperative. Properly designed and selected drainage is a critical component to food plant infrastructure and requires as much consideration as any other piece of equipment on the food and beverage production floor.

Are the drainage systems in food and beverage facilities effectively supporting their sanitary production processes? Have you ever questioned if there’s a more efficient way to clean and maintain the facility drains to ensure a pristine environment? We will share insights on:

• The history and fundamentals of food-safe drainage layouts and design
• Different types of floor drains and their essential specification criteria
• How to choose the right drainage features for the food and beverage facility
• Implementing effective cleaning protocols for maintaining a hygienic environment

Speaker

Seamless Multi-Plant Rollouts: Overcoming Challenges and Driving Measurable Improvements in Efficiency, Quality and Cost Whilst Ensuring Consistency, Scalability and Performance Across the Board

Manufacturers with multiple plant locations often struggle to maintain consistency, quality, and operational efficiency. In this session, we’ll showcase best practices and a real-world case study for executing successful multi-plant rollouts. Learn how to integrate key systems—ERP, quality control, graphical scheduling, and inventory management—across facilities to streamline operations and boost productivity.

Key Takeaways:

• ERP Integration: Synchronize procurement, production, and distribution across plants for smoother operations.
• Quality Control & Assurance: Establish integrated systems to maintain product consistency and compliance at scale.
• Graphical Scheduling: Optimize production scheduling to reduce downtime and improve resource utilization.
• Intelligent Inventory Management: Ensure materials are available when needed, avoiding shortages and overstocking.
• API Connectivity: Implement seamless communication between plant systems and corporate infrastructure, enabling real-time data flow.

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Spotlight on Women in the Food Engineering Industry

This panel discussion will feature women engineers doing important work in the food and beverage industry, specifically highlighting the speakers’ background and experience, recent projects, their thoughts on diversity in the engineering space, and what they would like to see in the future.

Speakers

Stampede & the Sous Vide Revolution

Stampede Culinary Partners manufactures both ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook poultry, pork, and beef products with further processing capabilities that go beyond slicing and dicing to sous vide cooking, natural smoking, 360-degree searing and include products such as prepared meals, gourmet sous vide pet food and alternative proteins for leading restaurants, retailers, food service distributors, airlines, convenience stores, military channels and home delivery customers.

The Illinois-based company turns 30 this year and recently released a first-of-its-kind industry study on sous vide. The findings from both qualitative and quantitative research underscores the value of commercial sous vide as a product that guarantees quality and safety across these food service sectors, while also aiding in the struggle against the national labor and skills shortage.

With over 500,000 square feet of manufacturing space, Stampede Culinary Partners is the largest has the largest network of sous vide production solutions in North America. Brock Furlong, president and CEO of Stampede, will share more on the research and how the company plans to meet growing demand from multiple channels.

Speaker

Keynote Presentation

Mass Customization driving Innovation in the Food and Beverage Industry

The food and beverage industry is at the nexus of transformative global manufacturing trends, driving a shift toward personalized, customer-centric solutions. At the heart of this evolution is mass customization—a model that redefines production to deliver personalized products at scale. From customized snack blends to individualized beverage formulations, rapid delivery systems powered by AI and advanced manufacturing technologies are reshaping consumer expectations. Learn to navigate this new reality with case studies and examples from the manufacturing industry in digital transformation.

Keynote Presenter

Keynote Presentation

Measuring & Defining Sustainability from a Packaging Perspective

Packaging is a common denominator when it comes to tackling food waste and sustainability for all CPGs but especially in food and beverage manufacturing. From life cycle analysis (LCA) to AI, Professor Andrew Hurley will deliver a keynote that looks at F&B issues through the lens of packaging.

Keynote Presenter

Refrigerated & Frozen Foods’ 2024 Processor of the Year Award Presentation

How Cafe Spice Uses Automation to Propel Private Label

Learn about Cafe Spice’s new, state-of-the-art, highly automated manufacturing facility in Beacon, New York. Named Refrigerated & Frozen Foods 2024 Processor of the Year, this family-owned food manufacturer is a private-label powerhouse, supplying Indian, Asian and other cuisines for hot bars and foodservice operations nationwide, including Whole Foods and Kroger. With a presence in all 50 states, Cafe Spice also has a branded line of RTE meals, found in the refrigerated/deli/grab and go depts. The Cafe Spice team will share their story of transitioning from a smaller, more manual legacy manufacturing site to a new facility that features the latest in automation and robotics. More information can be found in R&FF’s November cover story.

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FOOD ENGINEERING’s 2025 Plant of the Year Award Presentation

How Carolina Foods Uses Automation to Sweeten Baked Goods Production

Learn about Carolina Foods’ new, state-of-the-art headquarters and production facility in Pineville, N.C., named FOOD ENGINEERING’s 2025 Plant of the Year. The new facility adds 425,000 sq. ft. to Carolina Foods’ previously existing 100,000 sq. ft. of operations creating baked goods such as Duchess Honey Buns, donuts, pastries and pies. The project team’s use of a linear setup, high levels of automation and new production equipment technology have boosted the company’s ability to serve its customers in all 50 states. More information will be available in FE’s April cover story.

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