“As we look to expand our manufacturing and distribution capacity in the coming year, we will rely heavily on new technology to enhance our WMS and improve our overall operations,” said Vince Campanelli, Vice President at Parmalat, a global producer of milk and dairy products, fruit juices, cultured products and cheese products. “The use of the CK71s on both the manufacturing and distribution floors will help streamline all aspects of our business, from shipping and receiving to inventory, picking and more.”

A leading wine bottling operation has extended its 28-year partnership with Toyota forklift trucks by commissioning five new machines.

A custom-built, end-of-line packaging solution consisting of four wraparound case packers has been designed, built and installed by Cermex for biscuit manufacturer Arnott’s. The packaging solution requirements were to move from manual to automated case packing as well as changing the company’s secondary packaging from regular slotted containers (RSC) to wraparound blanks. A quick start-up of four production lines simultaneously while maintaining the integrity of the product was essential and the solution needed to be able to accommodate frequent form changeovers. An exponential increase in speed to 12.5 cases/min and a maximum pack speed of 175 packets/min was also required.

Clean water and green energy technology from Global Water Engineering (GWE) has been used by Chokyuenyong Industrial in Thailand to cut effluent COD pollution levels at its cassava production plant by more than 95%. The gas from its wastewater has also been extracted to power its boilers and generate electricity for its own use and to sell back to the provincial grid.

Ovivo has saved the state of Queensland millions of litres of water each day by building an advanced water treatment plant (AWTP) which is claimed to be the first of its kind globally and the first of its scale.

The efficiency of many packaging processes, like flow wrapping with flexible packaging or stacking/filling rigid, thermoformed or injection moulded packaging can be influenced by many parameters. Foremost amongst these is the molecular architecture of the polymer(s) used in the packaging material. This may be even more critical for recycled or reprocessed materials.

SIPA Berchi of Veneto, Italy, manufacturer of stretch blow moulding machines for the production of PET bottles, has successfully installed a SIPA SincroBloc system for the Cargill Company in Spain which produces and packages edible oils. The machine will create lightweight PET bottles for its oil products brands such as Primadonna.

The BencoPack aseptic form-fill-seal machine has been used to extend the shelf life of packaged soup for Korean food company, Pulmuone.

Dynamic Inspection recently supplied a Fortress four-lane metal detection system for inspecting frozen meat patties to an Australian manufacturer.

Rice, oats and, more recently, almonds are providing alternatives to soy in the dairy-free food market sector. In particular, almonds featured in a rising number of new product launches during 2010.

Peanut processor Nutco is Canada’s biggest supplier of organic peanut butter to the US and also supplies peanut butter in bulk to confectioners and bakers. The company specialises in packaging most of its production for sale under private labels.

Founded on sophisticated production intelligence software, a new breed of information-enabled energy management systems is taking on the carbon footprint challenge - while simultaneously improving production performance and the bottom line.

The latest packaging, processing and plastics technology will be on show at the AUSPACK PLUS 2011 ‘out of the box’ exhibition, 22-25 March 2011, 9 am - 4 pm daily, at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The food producer Kraft has converted its decaffeination pumps in Bremen, Germany, to variable-speed operation.

Lupin seeds can be used to produce low-fat sausage products, allowing processors to replace animal raw ingredients with vegetable materials.