< Previouswww.fdiforum.net NPD AND INGREDIENTS 20 B roadly speaking, there are two types of functional ingredient. Firstly, those that alter or achieve product texture, shelf life or stability – such as a thickening or raising agent – and, secondly, those with nutritional benefit such as those providing a protein boost or fortifying a product with vitamins, fibre or protein. As consumers search for healthier food choices, and new legislation sees companies ramping up their reformulation and NPD efforts, functional ingredients will become increasingly commonplace, even industry standard. The growth in clean label and the need for natural products, meanwhile, has led to a shift in ingredients such as thickeners and texturisers and food makers looking to appeal to shifting tastes and changing regulations. Often, it’s not the whole product that’s the issue, but rather one or more of its ingredients. One need only look at palm oil to see that much. So it is with sugar, which along with salt and saturated fat, continues to be one of the industry’s biggest issues. To try and combat sugar levels and safeguard public health, the UK officially introduced its Soft Drinks Industry Levy back in April 2018, following the lead of countries like Mexico where a sugar tax was reported to have cut sugar consumption by six per cent in its first year. Considering that Mexicans consume more carbonated drinks per person than any other nation, this was no small feat. For many, this was evidence that the sugar tax worked and should be deployed in other countries post haste. Others claimed that it reduced consumption by such a marginal amount, it seemed hardly worth it. Whatever your own opinions on the merits and effectiveness of this approach, one thing is certain, moving away from sugar is a priority for consumers, the industry and governments alike. Natural The healthy craze The healthy craze Health foods, protein-rich options and vegan alternatives; the rush for healthier products and more clarity of ingredients has led to a wide push of new products and new product development. 20-23.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:47 Page 1www.fdiforum.net NPD AND INGREDIENTS 21 © stock.adobe.com/Alexander Raths sweeteners made from the stevia plant are at the forefront of the quest for a healthier alternative but are a long way off usurping sugar in terms of taste and functionality. Artificial sweeteners such as sucralose may come with fewer calories, but uncertainty surrounds its long-term effects on the body. Researchers at the Federal University of Sao Paulo conducted a study and discovered a link between artificial sweeteners and low fertility rates – evidence, if it were needed, to move towards more natural alternatives. The miracle berry (or Synsepalum dulcificum, to give its Latin name) contains Miraculin, a protein which suppresses sourness to draw out a sweet flavour and is renowned for making Guinness taste like chocolate milkshake and vinegar taste like sweet sherry. While this phenomenon is certainly entertaining, the berry has numerous uses that extend well beyond its novelty factor. It could, for example, give healthier foods a more appealing flavour profile, whilst lowering sugar in others and all without the need for sweeteners, artificial or otherwise. Fortified foods provide a nutritional boost to food and beverage products, whether it’s a protein-packed bread, a botanical-loaded soft drink or a breakfast cereal fortified with fibre. Many such products purport to be a key part in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, so the logical next step is to develop foods which can actively assist or medicate the body. Nutraceuticals refers to a product or ingredient that is derived from food sources that comes with extra health benefits. Harnessing these benefits and developing products that can cater to specific illnesses is leading to the burgeoning pharma foods market. Gluten-free foods can enable sufferers of 22 Á 20-23.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:47 Page 2www.fdiforum.net NPD AND INGREDIENTS 22 celiac disease to enjoy foods they would otherwise be unable to, while speciality sweets allow diabetes sufferers to enjoy a treat without causing a spike in their blood sugar levels. Imagine then, a food product can help to medicate and maintain a disease like diabetes. Big food companies are already investing millions of dollars in research and development in this very field, making a fringe idea very much a reality. Already, there is a convergence between big pharma and food, with many of the top food brands actively engaging in the sciences. Brands like Nestlé have scientific divisions on top of their R&D departments. The reality is that the future of food is intrinsically tied to health and lifestyle, and rather than contributing towards illnesses, our food choices can help to cure and maintain it. But these products don’t come without their own unique set of challenges. Gluten- free products, for example, pose an ingredient challenge because they require substitute binders or thickeners, such as Xanthan gum. This gum is used to trap air to make batters light and fluffy, but it is difficult to uniformly disperse. Today, countless new ingredients and formulations are constantly being introduced. Whether adding new flavours or proteins or attempting to make recipes healthier or lower in calories, the industry is constantly evolving. This is often not a challenge to mixing technology, but a test of applications experience. Process challenges arise when attempting to disperse the variety of ingredients (including gums, gelatins, CMC, pectins, etc.) used to make smooth, thick fillings, coatings and glazes. Turning towards the latest trends in the food industry gives some indication to what we’ll be eating in the future. Functional ingredients are prescient, and the current exploration of natural sweeteners, fortified ingredients and ever more innovative machinery to better disperse and incorporate natural thickeners and texturisers will come to define our plates in the decades to come. © stock.adobe.com/asiandelight 20-23.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:47 Page 3www.fdiforum.net 23 NATURAL FOOD INGREDIENTS www.kanegrade.com Tel: +44 (0) 1438 742242 Email: info@kanegrade.com LEISTER’s HOTWIND SYSTEM 230v 3680W is impressive with its’s wide range of applications suitable for industrial heat processes such as shrinking packaging, sterilising tools or even smoothing and shining for a gloss finish on manufactured goods. This standalone heater is ideal for fast paced production lines; its ‘Plug in and Go’ operation is designed to deliver an immediate and cost-effective solution where setting up process heat is needed in the shortest amount of time. This way production demands can be made easily controllable and more manageable in the workplace. The HOTWIND has the highest power output in the SYSTEM range and is a user-friendly product with a compact design proving easy to use. One of the main features of the HOTWIND is the digital display which provides more visible control for operators. Its effortless system shows the setpoints and actual values with temperature specifications, ensuring precision is managed throughout the work process and driving a high-quality performance. For further information and technical advice for equipment in this field, please contact Welwyn Tool Group on 0800 856 0057, email info@welwyntoolgroup.com, or visit www.welwyntoolgroup.com. SINCE 1994 Halal Food Authority SYMBOL OF TRUST & AUTHENTICITY We specialise in Halal Certification of Food Ingredients, Beverages Dairy, Confectionery, Flavourings, Colourings, Pharmaceuticals, Toiletries, Cosmetics and other non-food items. We also certify Meat, Poultry, Slaughtering, Cutting, Portioning, Processed and Ready Meals for national and international markets. www.halalfoodauthority.com info@halalfoodauthority.com 0044 (0) 20 8446 7127 LONDON - IRELAND - BELGIUM GLOBALLY RECOGNISED 20-23.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:47 Page 4www.fdiforum.net 24 Lean, efficient, COVID-19 proof. The new pressures on warehouse and distribution centres are known by all, but will the latest strain of coronavirus and the risk of future lockdowns finally push the industry towards automated warehouses? E fficiency is always going to be the most important factor and the COVID-19 and the lockdown that ended at the start of the year hasn’t done much to change that – it’s just added new obstacles. The balance between minimising costs and maximising throughput, isolating and identifying factors that cause delays or problems becomes increasingly important. Now, however, maintaining levels of hygiene and social distancing are becoming even more paramount, but despite the difficulties faced and the obvious problems, COVID-19 may in fact be making the supply chain more streamlined. With the issues of cost and efficiency under the spotlight like never before, multimodal solutions are becoming more and more attractive to supply chain managers. It’s certainly the case that many companies aren’t following routes that could be more effective – for example, while sixty-three per cent of containers arrive in the UK through ports in the Southeast of England, only ten per cent of large distribution warehousing is actually based there. The vast majority of the items, therefore, have to travel across the country in trucks that will inevitably ramp up carbon emission. The introduction of more warehousing in the right areas will make a difference, as too will the co-operative logistics schemes whereby numerous companies can work together to full up one lorry with a number of products rather than have dozens travel around half-empty. It’s not just the vehicles on the road that have an environmental impact either – those confined to the warehouse play an equally important role. The new breed of warehouse management and distribution tools are, however, ensuring Finding the right balance Finding the right balanc e 24-27.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:48 Page 1www.fdiforum.net SUPPLY CHAIN 25 The leading UK Manufacturer of Forklift Truck Attachments sales@forklift-attachments.co.uk | forklift-attachments.co.uk With over 45 years experience in the food and drink industry, we promise a personal service that offers quality, value & innovation. Call Us On+44 (0) 1686 611 200 sales@forklift-attachments aper e&innovation. Call Us On+44 (0) 1686 mentscouk that offers complete traceability throughout the entire process. Each item can be monitored, traced and accounted for at every step of the way – and records of all these transactions can be easily made available, which is now often required by retailers in any case, as well as customs and excise. In an industry where supermarkets are demanding a determining point of origin or batch numbers for any recalls with twenty-four hours, it’s obviously of paramount importance that the traceability systems don’t falter upon reaching the supply chain. Due to the high-profile nature of many large retailers, both in terms of the media and public opinion, retailers are very quick to drop suppliers who show failures or delays in terms of tracing back problems, so having a good system in place can help prevent loss of major contracts. Despite this, there are still businesses that are 26 Á © stock.adobe.com/ Yellow Boat 24-27.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:48 Page 2www.fdiforum.net SUPPLY CHAIN 26 working at a rather slower speed and a recent survey of 250 companies suggested that twenty- six per cent of those surveyed wouldn’t be able to identify product recall items within four hours, while eleven per cent would need at least a day and ten per cent wouldn’t be able to carry out those requirements at all. Those companies would therefore have little chance when it came to winning major blue chip contracts. Of course, materials handling remains a major factor in the supply chain, with the human element predictably being the one with the greatest potential for loss of efficiency. Forklifts, for instance, are commonly used across the materials handling industry, with almost every warehouse or distribution centre in the country operating in a few at least. What can cause confusion, however, is the wide array of forklifts available on the market, and what roles they might best be suitable towards. Almost all forklifts will come with health and safety precautions such as shielded roofs as standard, but there might also need to be considerations in terms of user accessibility, or even ergonomics. While many may scoff at the idea that ergonomic design should warrant a more expensive forklift system, one should remember that in an average day, an operator might move there arm over a thousand times an hour, and their head twice that number. Dragging that out over an eight-hour day is going to cause serious strain and fatigue on workers. While this might not lead to injury, it will certainly have an impact on efficiency levels, as workers begin to pause to loosen muscles or take quick rests – all of which can damage efficiency, and yet can be easily avoided. One of the difficult materials to transport in the food and drink supply chain is bulk materials. As powders and other free- flowing materials, many bulk ingredients need to be handled and treated differently. Handling big bags of powdered or similar materials, such as salt, flour, starches, puts an enormous amount of strain on equipment across the production line, which can eat into production time and decrease efficiency. Bulk materials also present a significant challenge for metal detection. Because these materials aren’t typically packaged until the end of the process - certainly where sweets and snack foods are concerned and in metallic packaging at that - it’s imperative that the product be checked for metal at every stage where metal contamination could potentially occur. As it stands, metal detection usually forms a seamless part of the free-flowing production process, as metal detectors used in the snack food sectors are gravity-fed, which means the product flows through a pipe directly through the metal detector to ensure that no metal contaminates make it through to the consumer. One of the most reliable, and indeed popular, means of processing bulk goods is with a conveyer system. Using a conveyer system has many advantages over 24-27.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:48 Page 3www.fdiforum.net SUPPLY CHAIN 27 traditional bulk handling practices and solutions, not least because of its dependability and safe transport of materials from one workstation to the next. Even more advantageous is its ability to cut down on unnecessary processes involved in material shifting, and likewise curb the time needed in carrying materials between two assembly points. In many cases, the improvements that can be made to the supply chain to increase efficiency are neither overly expensive or esoteric, but are simply ones that operators have taken for granted. What is for sure, however, is that with the increasing demands being placed on manufacturers, both by retailers and the general public, the supply chain is going to be facing some serious challenges in the coming years and will remain an important part of the food and drink industry. © stock.adobe.com/ Kadmy 24-27.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:48 Page 4www.fdiforum.net TEMPERATURE CONTROL 28 C ontrolling the temperature of foodstuffs is a critical part of it entering our diet. On an industrial scale, temperature control plays an even larger role. In order to preserve the freshness of just-picked produce, food manufacturers utilise chilled storage. ‘From farm to fork’ is a darling in the food adverting industry and a call to arms for farmers, but in order to realise the notion, cold storage is a must. Therefore, it’s important at all times to focus on methods of efficiently maintaining temperature levels, with as little ambient loss of temperature as possible. At the end of the day, it’s far more expensive to keep air cool, than it is to warm up. Doors and loading bays create an immediate but necessary breach in a warehouse’s defences, allowing the cooler air inside to escape via convection currents. What’s more, this is an inescapable consequence, as the ultimate goal of these facilities is to store and ship out goods as quickly as possible to their final destination. As such, while it might result in energy savings to install a number of doors between the cold storage facility and the loading bays, this only slows down the productivity of the workers within, and how soon they can have the stock shipped out. Ultimately, it becomes a difficult balance between energy savings and throughput. The final focus must always be on the efficiency of a distribution centre at its central goal – the storage and distribution The right temperature In controlling temperature, food manufacturers preserve and maintain a food product’s sensory profile and longevity. Even miniscule changes in temperature can result in spoilage, requiring constant vigilance and control. The right temperature 28-31.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:49 Page 1www.fdiforum.net 29 thermometer.co.uk THERMADATA ® áXٳIXn JJ0«³ Temperature monitoring solutions for your HACCP plan Manufactured in the UK, we offer a wide range of specialist thermometers for the catering industry from daily hand-held monitoring to Bluetooth ® wireless technology & remote Wi-Fi logging centre of goods. Energy savings must come second to this, though should still be pursued at every opportunity, of course. Air curtains provide a potential solution to this problem, or, at the very least, minimise the loss of heat at loading bays. A cold store air curtain works by creating a curtain of air that cuts through currents, creating a barrier between the external 30 Á © stock.adobe.com/ kokliang1981 28-31.qxp_Layout 1 25/07/2022 14:49 Page 2Next >