Winners of the 7th European FoodTec Award

The DLG, co-organiser of Anuga FoodTec, has revealed the names of the five companies to receive gold and silver awards at the forthcoming Anuga FoodTec in March. The prestigious awards are conferred on food industry processing companies and suppliers of innovative concepts that have been successfully implemented in the European food industry. Two gold and three silver awards will be received by the winners from Germany, the Netherlands and Austria.

The European FoodTec Awards consists of gold and silver. Gold is awarded for products with added new functions or the use of a new concept, resulting in significant process improvements. Silver is awarded for existing products with further development that has achieved a significant improvement in function or process.

A number of sectors in the food industry are included in the awards scheme:

• Processing and automation
• Packaging
• Environmental
• Biotechnology
• Process management & software solutions
• Logistics
• Food safety and quality management

Gold award winners 2009

A gold award goes for the first time to a software company, GRS Software GmbH, based in Homburg an der Saar, for its GRS SIGNUM application, a so-called 32-bit fat client application, consisting of various modules which can automatically generate a product declaration to include the list of ingredients, nutritional values, allergen and GMO status and product specifications. The meat products sector has its own separate module which, regardless of nesting depth, can perform the essential calculations to determine excess amounts of fat and connective tissue and the ratio of water to protein.

Hertel GmbH in Salzburg receives its award for its innovative rectification wort boiling system. This is a boiling system which involves both rectification and desorption. This allows the full extent of the evaporation needed to remove unwanted flavours when boiling the wort to be reduced to a minimum and results in huge energy savings without having to accept worts or beers of a poorer quality.

Silver award winners

CutControl and CutVision software packages developed by K+G Wetter GmbH based in Biedenkopf-Breidenstein. The CutControl module makes an automated cutting process a really practical possibility at last while the CutVision module automatically generates the associated documentation. Employing the two modules together increases productivity and, at the same time, significantly enhances quality assurance and production control.

Intralox LLC Europe based in Amsterdam for its new 850 and 1650 series conveyor belts which have now proven their worth, particularly in meat, poultry and seafood processing plants. The hygiene improvements have been achieved by a combination of innovative ideas, one of the results of which has enabled the number of hinges found on standard belts to be reduced by more than 60%.

Mettler-Toledo Garvens GmbH based in Giessen for its X-ray CombiWeigher XS3 AdvanCheK which combines accurate dynamic weighing with a reliable X-ray-based foreign body identification system. The main advantage of this system is that it includes a genuinely dynamic control scale employing EMFR weighing cell technology which allows products to be dynamically weighed with great accuracy and meets all national calibration requirements.

A jury panel of international experts selected the five innovations from 28 short-listed finalists. The jury members were: Professor Petr Dejmek, Department of Food Processing, University of Lund, Sweden, Professor Ulrich Kulozik, Institute for Food Processing Technology, Munich Technical University, Professor Achim Stiebing, Department of Meat Technology, University of Applied Science of Lippe and Hoexter, Lemgo, Gemany, Professor Erich Josef Windhab, Institute for Food Science/Process Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zuerich, Switzerland, Professor Horst-Christian Langowski, Fraunhofer IVV, Freising, Germany, Freising-Weihenstephan, Professor Fons AGJ Voragen, Food Chemistry Group, University of Wageningen, the Netherlands.

The European FoodTec awards program is organised by the DLG and sponsored by EFFoST (European Federation of Food Science and Technology), the European Dairy Magazine, Deutsche Milchwirtschaft , Fleischwirtschaft and Fleischwirtschaft and Lebensmitteltechnik trade journals.

The DLG is co-organiser of Anuga FoodTec and the organiser of the expert forum program. The forum this year addresses key issues in the food industry: hygiene, chilled foods, convenience, noodle, robotics, coating, diary, sensory, meat, packaging, high pressure and bakery technology. More at www.anugafoodtec.com.