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Articles and interviews including Editor’s Note, Food Safety column by Rick Stier, and Engineering R&D

ARTICLES

Editor's Note

This year's FA&M conference is the antidote for the winter blues

Casey Laughman

February 17, 2020

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In last year’s February issue, I wrote about how I was trying to overcome the depressing sight of snow and ice on the ground by thinking ahead to April and our annual Food Automation & Manufacturing Conference in Miami. The more things change …

Editor's Note

Changes big and small create challenges for food and beverage manufacturers

Casey Laughman

January 13, 2020

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After the mad dash to end one year, January seems like a chance to get your feet back under you as you start the next.

Editor's Note

Identifying and documenting workarounds for process challenges can help prevent failures

Casey Laughman

December 13, 2019

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Whether it’s water efficiency, packaging, food safety, material flow or anything else you can think of, there is always a point in the process that creates challenges, and that point is usually a headache for processors of any size.

Editor's Note

Sustainable solutions offer big challenges to food processors

Casey Laughman

November 13, 2019

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It’s fair to say that the easy part is over, or at least mostly over. But sustainability isn’t going away because corporate sustainability goals, cost pressures and demands for details about sustainable production and ingredients from consumers are all here to stay.

Editor's Note

Annual survey of the industry is mostly good news, but some worries lurk

Casey Laughman

October 14, 2019

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Both throughput and budgets are generally increasing, which means the industry is growing and companies are investing in hardware and software to help manage that growth.

Editor's Note

Leading food & beverage companies are resilient in the face of change

Although there’s movement in the Top 100 list, most leading companies stay the same

Casey Laughman

September 13, 2019

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The one thing that all of the largest food and beverage companies have in common is that they’ve built an infrastructure that allows them to face challenges to existing businesses while still finding ways to grow.

Editor's Note

Sweat the details: the small stuff isn’t so small when it comes to reputation

Casey Laughman

August 12, 2019

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The small stuff falling through the cracks is often an indicator of larger issues within an organization, and paying close attention to the details can often help head off those larger issues.

Food Automation & Manufacturing conference

Editor's Note

Read all about the 20th annual FA&M conference

Casey Laughman

July 12, 2019

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From the first session on Monday morning to the final session on Wednesday, FA&M featured speakers who were engaging, insightful and gave attendees a lot to think about.

Editor's Note

2019 Construction Survey Highlights Good and Bad in Food & Beverage Industry

Processors are investing in new building and renovations, but labor shortage creates difficulties

Casey Laughman

June 14, 2019

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What I like about the Construction Survey is that it gives us some insights that we don't get to see too much in the rest of our reporting throughout the year.

Engineering

Three ways production engineers can prioritize problems

Whether you make widgets or food, you have to balance maintenance and production to get high-quality products out the door

Jessica Wettstein

June 7, 2019

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Production engineers have two competing priorities throughout the year. One is to support the maintenance engineering department, and the other is to integrate new products into the plant and packaging line. This kind of segmented planning can be very confusing and often puts production engineers in a bind. How can they organize these competing tasks to achieve a more effective workflow?

Packaging Research in Food Product Design and Development

Packaging Research in Food Product Design and Development is the first book to comprehensively address the issues of graphics design and visual concepts, from a systematic, scientific viewpoint, yet with business applications in mind.

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Food Engineering

2020 February

In the February 2020 issue of Food Engineering, we outline how to prepare backups for your automation systems in the event of power spikes, outages and viruses or cyber attacks.

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