The Tennant Model 5700 features patented FaST (Foam-activated Scrubbing Technology) and is certified to reduce the risk of slip-and-fall.
FaST scrubbers also use 70% less water than non-FaST machines.
The Model 5700 is ideal for use in ‘wet’ food manufacturing facilities.
www.tennantco.com.au
australia@tennantco.com
Saraya supplies an alcohol-based surface sanitiser with quaternary ammonia for food processing plants.
Highly evaporative, Smart San kills bacteria in 60 seconds and is designed for use on water-sensitive equipment including touch pads, scales and packaging equipment.
Approved for direct contact with food, the spray has a slight residual effect and kills 99.9% of all bacteria and germs.
The Smart San formula is also available as a hand mist, which contains vegetable glycerine and is soothing on the skin.
Sprayed from an automatic, sensor-activated dispenser, the atomised liquid product penetrates the nail and cuticle area, killing germs.
www.saraya.com.au
gary@saraya.com.au
India is rapidly emerging as a critical market for Australia’s food industry, according to a new Australian Government-funded report launched in New Delhi today.
Minister for Trade, Warren Truss, and Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Peter McGauran, said the report, Strengthening the India-Australia corridor in select food and agribusiness sectors, showed increasing consumer demand among India’s growing middle class.
Mr Truss said that this demand was creating more opportunities for businesses in the Australian food sector.
Indian food retail is a multi-billion dollar industry, estimated to be worth around $233 billion, with food being the largest category of consumer spending.
India’s increasingly affluent middle class is driving growth in organised food retail and food services, with organised retail expected to increase by 30% over the next five years.
Australia’s expertise in food production, combined with high-quality ingredients and innovative technology, places it in an ideal position to make greater inroads into India, Mr McGauran said.
There is also opportunity for Australia to supply the expertise in retail services, supply chain and cold chain logistics, agricultural technology, and food production and processing, that India needs to develop its food industry.
For further information on the Indian food industry or for a copy of the report, email Michael Carter (Austrade New Delhi).
Auto-Bake presents its hybrid Serpentine oven that incorporates both radiant and convection heating systems as well as the Auto-Bake ‘free tray’ transport system that allows the use of existing rack oven pans and ancillary equipment, enabling smaller bakeries to scale up and automate processes.
The oven has a small footprint, one-tenth the size of an equivalent tunnel oven.
According to the company, the Serpentine system will be on display at IBIE in Chicago in October.
www.auto-bake.com
graemeb@auto-bake.com
A study published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health revealed pregnant women may be putting their babies at risk of listeriosis, a serious foodbourne illness derived most commonly from soft cheese and smallgoods, because they do not receive enough information about the disease from their health service providers.
Listeria monocytogenes, the foodbourne pathogen, can have consequences for the baby including spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, septicaemia and meningitis.
There exists an opportunity for food manufacturers of products that are particularly vulnerable to contamination to create awareness through adequate product labelling.
Dolly Bondarianzadeh, lead researcher at the School of Health Sciences, University of Wollongong, said results indicate that when it comes to food, women who have enough information and knowledge from a trusted source change their eating behaviour.
The study surveyed 586 women attending antenatal clinics in one private and two major public hospitals in New South Wales and reported that more than half of the respondents had limited knowledge of food with high Listeria risk.
Siemens’ Simatic Plant Intelligence connects its SCADA and manufacturing expertise systems from the machine to corporate management level, allowing users to access important plant information in real time as well as control production equipment.
Transparency in production and efficient acquisition, evaluation, distribution and archiving of production data are features of the system.
According to the company, the Simatic Plant Intelligence system runs on a Windows operating system and enables parameters across several plants to be analysed.
https://mes-simaticit.siemens.com
till.moor@siemens.com
Gold Peg have made available the RotaTherm continuous cooker, which injects steam into the product as it passes up the cooking column, cooking ingredients in a single pass.
Low to high viscous products, low to high moisture foods and those containing high or low volumes of particulate can all be cooked in this way.
According to the company, the RotaTherm can produce both UHT and pasteurised products, and achieves high levels of food safety through its precise high temperature short resistance time (HTST) cooking.
www.goldpeg.com
enquiries@goldpeg.com
Members of the food industry are invited to attend TraceTech, a two day conference and exhibition to inform and educate supply chain, transport and logistics managers about the benefits of improved traceability, held on October 23rd and 24th in Sydney.
Free keynote presentations during TraceTech by industry professionals will cover issues of traceability including why it is key to gaining a competitive advantage in the supply chain.
Presentation details:
presentation one
Topic: Why traceability is the key to unlocking value and gaining competitive advantage in your supply chain?
Presenter: Nicholas Tsougas, director, Insight Program (federal sector), Oracle Corporation.
When: Tuesday October 23, 10am.
Presenatation two
Topic: Track and trace in consumer electronics: improving traceability to deliver competitive advantage.
Presenter: Peter Djurichkovic, national logistics system manager, Canon Australia.
When: Tuesday October 23, 2pm.
Presentation three
Topic: Information flows across the supply chain.
Presenter: Brett Campbell, partner consulting, Deloitte Touche Tomatsu.
When: Wednesday October 24, 2pm.
Click here to register for TraceTech.
Ingredients: mineral water
Brand owner: Coca Cola Amatil
Brand/product manager: Joanne Pitsikas
Packaging supplier: Le Mac Australia Group (sleeve), Amcor Closures (closure), Oberland Glass (bottle)
Graphics package designer: Design Nucleus
John Morris Scientific has released Adixen Sensistor’s Hydrogen Leak Detector H2000, an instrument for leak detection and tightness control that is able to identify leaks in hermetically sealed food packaging 1000 times smaller than those detectable with traditional soapy water, pressure decay or bubble tests.
Hydrogen leak detection is conducted with a food-safe gas mix constituting 5% hydrogen in 95% nitrogen, and can be transported to the leaks and dissipated at a faster rate than other gases, allowing for quicker testing and re-testing.
According to the company, the H2000 is based on modern microelectronics and involves no expensive vacuum pump technology in the detection process, resulting in low maintenance.
www.johnmorris.com.au
info@johnmorris.com.au
Frutarom’s Neuravena has been proved in the results of two recent in-vivo studies to improve stress-coping abilities and cognitive function/activity, confirming the results of previous in vitro investigations and offering manufactures of mental health functional food products an innovative ingredient.
Neuravena (EFLA 955), Frutarom’s wild green oat extract, has been shown to enhance stress coping abilities as well as learning performance.
The phytonutrients present in the extract are believed to affect the activity of cerebral enzymes closely related to mental health and cognitive function.
Study 1: Changes in brain activity
Nonspecific effects on the brain can be investigated by measuring changes in brain activity.
In the first study the effect of orally administered Neuravena on the electrical brain activity of rats was examined.
Increasing individual doses of the oat extract were administered to the animals at 90-minute intervals.
Changes in the electrical activity of the brain were measured continuously over a period of five hours.
Results of the study showed that Neuravena has stimulating effects on brain activity, with the highest dose exerting the greatest effect.
The observed effects on electrical brain activity, the so-called electrical fingerprint, is indicative of the stimulating properties of Neuravena.
A subsequent database comparison of the electrical fingerprint of Neuravena with the activity profiles of various drugs affecting the central nervous system revealed that Neuravena stimulates brain activity in a similar way to pharmaceuticals used in the treatment of dementia.
Study 2: Behavioural studies on stress-coping abilities and learning performance
A second study investigated the effect of Neuravena on the central nervous system in a series of standardised behavioural trials.
A group of 12 rats was administered a dose of 1g/kg bodyweight with food over a period of seven weeks, while another group was given ten times this dose and a control group received a normal diet.
The results indicated enhanced stress-coping abilities and alertness, as well as an improvement in general learning performance and speed of learning.
Moreover, a positive effect on social behaviour was observed. A subsequent pathological examination also confirmed that ingestion of Neuravena is safe and well tolerated in subchronic treatment.
Neuravena promotes stress coping abilities and exerts a positive effect on cognitive performance, most probably mainly on concentration and learning ability.
In view of the growing market for mental health products, considerable potential will unfold for the extract.
Like other extracts of the EFLA line, Frutarom manufactures the extract exclusively from an oat variety cultivated especially for Frutarom by contract growing. This variety is characterised by a particularly high bioactivity and was selected by bioassay screening.
A workshop on polymer packaging and shelf life in Melbourne on November 14th-15th 2007 will be lead by Dr Gordon Robertson, FAIP, in association with the Australian Institute of Packaging.
Decisions about which polymer to chose or what the effect on shelf life will be if a change is made in package dimensions or polymer type are often based on trial and error or intuition.
This course is an attempt to fill that gap with respect to plastics packaging by discussing the basic principles behind polymer selection, deteriorative reactions in foods and shelf life.
The workshop will provide attendees the opportunity to construct connections between food chemistry, packaging design and polymer science to expand their knowledge base and competence.
Participants will identify key packaging decision-making processes and will validate their new knowledge to reframe package challenges and make winning food packaging decisions.
Learning objectives
Details
Melbourne: 14th-15th November
Medina Executive Flinders Street
88 Flinders Street
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Dr. Gordon L. Robertson, FAIP, was Foundation Professor of Packaging Technology at Massey University where he taught food packaging courses for 21 years. He then spent 11 years with Tetra Pak in Asia. Now he is an adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland and a consultant in food packaging based in Brisbane, Australia. Dr Robertson is the author of the definitive textbook on food packaging, the 2nd edition of which was published last year by CRC Press.
For further details and a registration form please contact Dr Robertson directly.
Australia’s leading branded food manufacturers and marketers are to be congratulated on their achievements in a very competitive market.
However, even the most successful companies will be aware of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Not least of these arise from the private label business: its growing sophistication, the increasing number of private label products, and competition for space on the retailers’ shelves.
The threat to brand owners is that private label operators will quickly assimilate innovations, focusing the market on price alone as a differentiator and discouraging investment in all but superficial innovation.
The value of brands is tied up in intellectual assets: brand names, logos, pack design, manufacturing technology and know-how, product design and formulations.
It is likely that the most successful marketers of the future will be those most adept at protecting and leveraging these assets.
In particular, with the present trend toward out-sourcing and contracting research and development and product development services, it is inevitable that greater use of formal intellectual asset protection strategies will be key to effective intellectual asset management and commercial advantage.
For Australia in particular, it is likely that the recently introduced Innovation Patent system will be increasingly used to protect the incremental, but important, product and packaging developments that might not have been protectable under patents in the past.
In addition, the recent overhaul of the Registered Design system is likely to make it more useful than it may have been in the past for effectively protecting product and packaging design innovations.
Taco patent
The Old El Paso Stand’N’Stuff taco shell is a great example of how a useful, marketable product development can be protected by the innovation patent in Australia.
General Mills Marketing Inc. owns a certified (enforceable) innovation patent (no. 2006100568) entitled ‘Square Bottom Taco Shell’.
This patent allows them to stop any competitor making or marketing any free-standing taco shell which has the key elements of a flat base attached to upright sides — regardless of any other feature or the appearance of the competitor’s taco shell.
This is not a high-tech development, but it is a useful and marketable point of difference which can be protected.
Contact Adam Hyland, Watermark, for more information.
Wolf Blass Black Label 2004 has won the 2007 Great Australian Red award, an annual wine competition that celebrates blends that define Australia, namely Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.
It is significant that the winner of the Great Australian Red is not a single vineyard blend, but a blend across multiple vineyards and regions.
According to one of the Award’s creators, wine writer Tyson Stelzer, there is a focus on single vineyards and small producers at present, and yet the capacity of companies like Wolf Blass to blend across many regions is a strength of Australian winemaking.
The judges commented that Wolf Blass Black Label 2004 demonstrated the strength of its vineyard sources across South Australia.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) is considering a number of changes to the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, regulations that govern the sale of food sold in Australia and New Zealand.
Proposed changes include the approval of a food additive for wine, amendments to levels of chemical residues present in food, the addition of lutein to infant formula, a new genetically modified rice variety, and amended maximum residue limits for chemical residues in food.
FSANZ operates one of the most transparent standard-setting processes in the world, with industry, public health professionals, government agencies and consumers encouraged to access and comment on all scientific evaluations and reasons for making regulatory decisions.
Details and assessments of the proposed changes listed above can be found on the FSANZ website.
Submissions close on November 14th, 2007.
The New Zealand and Australian institutes of food science and technology (NZIFST and AIFST) encourage members of the food industry to attend a seminar on October 15th in New Zealand which will focus on fulfilling Food Control Plan requirements and expanding knowledge of food safety practices.
Those involved in manufacturing for food service, chilled ready-to-eat meals and food safety auditing, consulting or verifying will benefit from the seminar which will open with a presentation on Food Control Plans by Mike Orchard, program manager (food service) at NZFSA.
Industry perspectives on food safety will be discussed by Gary Kennedy from Correct Food Systems (Australia) and Mary Whelan, an AIFST food services advisor, who will speak about her recent fact finding trip in Europe.
Microbiology and hands-on food safety programs will be discussed by researchers and those in industry.
Event details:
Date: Monday 15th October
Time: 8.30am – 4.30pm
Venue: Waipuna Hotel, 58 Waipuna Rd, Auckland
Cost: $150
Click here for the full programme, further information and registration form.
Donaldson has produced a filtration solution that uses Ultra-Web technology to capture submicron particles for a variety of industries, including food processing and warehousing.
The filters can be incorporated into any of the company’s range of dust, fume and mist collectors or retrofitted into all brands of cartridge collectors.
According to the company, the nanofibres used in the filters capture particles that can then be cleaned off easily, keeping the substrate clean, and the Ultra-Web filter is the only standard cartridge filter media rated to capture microscopic dust particles.
Email Donaldson for more information.
The NSW Food Authority has signalled it means business with the recent prosecution of two breaches of the NSW Food Act, which led to a total fine of $30,000 plus $80,000 in costs, in a timely reminder for food and beverage manufacturers.
Three sample bottles of Old McTavish Scotch Whisky in the warehouse of a liquor wholesale business were tested by the NSW Food Authority and found to contain 38.6% ethanol.
If something is labelled as Scotch whisky in Australia, under the Food Standards Code it must comply with Scottish standards, which require a minimum 40% ethanol content.
Because the samples failed to meet Scottish standards, the NSW Food Authority prosecuted the liquor wholesaler for two breaches of the Food Act:
Guilty plea and fine
The liquor wholesaler pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
The choice of court in this prosecution was extremely significant.
Usually these cases come before the Local Court, which can only impose a maximum $10,000 penalty.
The Supreme Court, unlike the Local Court, can impose a fine up to $275,000 for each of these breaches.
In setting the penalty the Supreme Court discounted the fine by 15% in recognition that the wholesaler had pleaded guilty.
The Court also acknowledged that this was the wholesaler’s first offence and that it had taken steps to improve its equipment for measuring ethanol content.
The liquor wholesaler was fined $15,000 for each offence; $30,000 in total penalties.
However, this was not the only cost imposed — the liquor wholesaler also had to pay the prosecutor’s costs of $80,000.
If you factor in the wholesaler’s own legal costs, these two breaches were expensive.
Lessons to learn
This decision is a wake-up call to review compliance with food labelling laws.
The Court made two things very clear in this case: consumers are entitled to have food accurately labelled; and the obligation to comply with the relevant provisions of the Food Act must be treated seriously, as must all breaches of the Act.
By bringing this action in the Supreme Court, the NSW Food Authority has also made it clear that it is ready to seek higher penalties than those available in the Local Court, and give the penalty provisions some teeth.
Although the fines were nowhere near the maximum allowable for each breach, they are significantly more than those available in the Local Court — and even more significant given the prosecutor’s costs of $80,000.
In the liquid food industry the demand for better quality at acceptable cost is forcing the processing industry towards new innovations.
Low temperature processing is one such innovative process.
Refrigeration technology has opened the gate for developing freeze concentration (FC) technology.
By using the latest refrigeration developments new concepts are being created that make freeze concentration more competitive with traditional concentration methods.
Food liquids consist of water and dissolved solids.
In most cases the water content is 90% or more.
Part of this water can be removed by concentration.
The advantage of using freeze concentration is that the original characteristics of the product are maintained as:
The concentrated product has the same basic quality as the original.
Therefore, the success of freeze concentration is based on quality preservation.
Separation
Freeze concentration consists of two parts: crystallisation and separation.
During crystallisation, part of the water is converted into spherical and pure ice crystals without any inclusions.
Traditionally, a separate nucleation and growth principle is used to create these spherical ice crystals.
One of the new developments is to use slurry crystallisation in which the production of ice crystals and their growth is no longer separated.
The separation of the ice crystals is done in a piston type wash column.
In this wash column (Fig 1) the concentrated liquid is separated from the ice crystals by mechanical force (filtration) while the ice crystals are counter currently back-washed.
The pure separated ice is melted practically without any losses.
The positive effect of slurry crystallisation is in the design of the equipment and the manufacturing cost can be considerably lower.
In particular, the design of the scraped heat exchanger and mixing vessel can be simplified.
In combination with modifications in the ice separator cost compared with the rational design are significantly lower.
Additionally, the specific energy consumption is also less which results in lower overall production costs.
Niro’s newly developed IceCon process of slurry crystallisation reduces capital cost of the process by up to 40%.
Slurry crystallisation
In the Niro freeze concentration system slurry crystallisation combines an external heat exchanger with a mixing vessel to provide for necessary residence time for crystal growth.
The recirculation flow controls the sub-cooling and keeps the crystals suspended.
During the recirculation cycle the sub-cooling is transferred into ice crystals.
The level of sub-cooling will continuously decrease until its lowest value is reached shortly before re-entering the heat exchanger.
A cyclic pattern of sub-cooling will result.
Another important design aspect is the slurry density.
With proper ice concentrations and providing that proper mixing is assured there always will be sufficient crystals at all places within the mixing vessel to prevent primary nucleation.
The heat exchanger is designed with a scraped surface.
Fig 2 shows grown ice crystals that were formed in a concentrated sugar solution.
The freeze concentration process can be used for virtually every liquid with a low to medium viscosity.
The main advantage of preventing quality loss makes the process ideal for high quality, heat sensitive food products such as coffee extract, fruit juices, wine, beer, vinegar, dairy products and nutraceuticals.
The advantages of freeze concentration to the food industry are attributed directly to the distinct improvement in quality over existing products, while slurry crystallisation provides a significant overall cost reduction that will challenge quality oriented liquid food markets.
Australian restaurateur Luke Mangan opened his first US restaurant, South Food and Wine Bar, on October 1, showcasing Australian cuisine and wine to an international market.
Austrade’s San Francisco-based Consul-General and Trade Commissioner, David Lawson, has commended award winning Australian chef-turned-restaurateur, Luke Mangan and his partners, West Australian Liz O’Connell and New Zealander Anna Weinberg, on their new venture.
“San Francisco, a city of sophisticated food and wine connoisseurs, second only to New York, will be delighted by [Mangan’s] Australian culinary creations and boutique wine list, which represents the backgrounds of the partners, at South Food and Wine Bar,” Lawson said.
South’s menu is a showcase of Australian food referred to as ‘ModOZ’ which marries fresh, bold flavours with southern hemisphere food such as barbecued prawns and mango salsa, lamb chops and mint pesto, Barramundi and Tasmanian trout matched with antipodean wines.
This venture will be a great opportunity to highlight Australian food ingredients in this discerning market and complements much of the work Austrade does in building recognition and awareness of Australian food and wine.
Mangan said the decision to enter the US market was made easier with the help of his partners West Australian Liz O’Connell, a former executive with Australian wine company Southcorp and New Zealander Anna Weinberg, who owned acclaimed New York restaurant Stella.
“It will be the first restaurant in San Francisco to have a rotating list of exclusive wines from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and one of the only southern hemisphere-dedicated lists in the US,” Mangan said.
“The minute you open a restaurant, from day one; wherever it is, it’s risky.
“But overall, I believe that Australia has something different to offer. We have great wine, food and growing interest in the US and internationally,” Mr Mangan said.
Export opportunities
According to Austrade, Mangan’s decision to enter the US market was clever, as the US is Australia’s second largest food export market.
US restaurant industry sales are expected to reach a record US$537 billion (A$620 billion) in 2007 — an increase of 5% in sales from last year.
Many Australian small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are doing well in the US market.
There are over 9000 Australian businesses now exporting to the US in goods alone and the food industry is playing a big role in this growth.
Food exports to the US are worth nearly $2.9 billion, with Australia’s strong brand image for healthy food and good quality wine going down well with American consumers.