Is the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry or the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research responsible for the Australian food industry? The answer is, apparently, both.

Mars Petcare Australia has implemented a customised compressed air system from Champion Compressors, optimising production, reliability and energy efficiency.

The potential for food contamination, economic adulteration, and other related food safety issues are leading to an increased awareness of the important role that food testing laboratories play in ensuring the safety and quality of our food supply. The requirements for sophisticated instruments and well-trained, experienced analysts in food safety laboratories are essential factors in making certain that food is safe from chemical contamination.

The Tasman Tank Co, which produces more than 200 large industrial and municipal tanks a year, says advances in specifying, design, protective coatings, manufacture and installation need to be understood to get the best results for particular industries and applications. The company says these changes are particularly important to the resources, energy and ‘green’ environmental processing industries.

The field-proven technology of monobloc machine synchronisation can now be used for packaging functions as well: Krones has also come up with a monobloc solution for the dry end. The Ergobloc D (for Dry) combines field-proven standard machines with innovative new designs to create a holistically harmonised system for end-of-the-line packaging and palletising. It can be used for canning lines, non-returnable-glass lines and non-returnable-PET lines in all speed categories.

An environmentally sensitive brewery, that makes more beer out of less water while using less energy, has commenced production in the home of one of the world’s leading beer-drinking countries, Australia.

A revolutionary thermal processing technology using 915 MHz microwave energy has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Three safe and sanitary robotics solutions have reformed a dangerous work environment for a meat processor.

A recently developed system that uses air, rather than water, to blast peels off fruit could reduce water use by 80%.

Results from a New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) study looking at chemical residues in fresh, unwashed produce has found no health or food safety concerns.

Poultry processors who constantly engage in the battle to keep Salmonella contamination off their products may have a new procedure at their disposal: add some salt and turn up the heat.

Driven by OHS concerns and skills shortages, there is an increasing demand for smart solutions that take mixed case palletising in a new and exciting direction. Advances in software, robotics and intelligent storage, buffering and sequencing systems have enabled the development of two innovations designed to reduce the cost and improve the efficiency, productivity and safety of building mixed case pallets.

Using proprietary technologies developed in conjunction with the University of British Columbia, Canadian company EnWave is focused on the development of new methods of dehydrating food and biological materials, using radiant energy vacuum technology.

Eggs are implicated in more food safety incidents than just about any other ingredient. Now, a newly developed rapid egg cooling technology could reduce future contamination events.

Motors used in food production areas are primarily selected for either ‘dry’ areas or ‘wet’ areas. These are entirely different situations with very different demands. We assume we are looking at safe areas, where there is no hazard from combustible gas or liquids.