SugarCreek: Brandworthy Food Solutions

2015 was not a great year for the food industry. One food safety nightmare after another made the news. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration listed 28 separate recalls and alerts for the month of December alone. Those recalls represented products ranging from dietary supplements to fresh farm produce which were recalled for a whole array of problems —salmonella, E. coli and listeria contamination, undeclared milk, soy and eggs, contamination with glass and metal fragments.

Brand after brand struggled when problems with their products arose, which sometimes made their customers seriously sick, and lead to food recalls. Once problems were detected, these companies at times found it difficult to pinpoint just where the problems had originated. Was it with the original supplier? Did contamination take place during production? Was the food mishandled during shipping? All of this confusion left many consumers with a bad taste in their mouths, and many brands saw their customer base shrink.

Demand for bacon is up, regulatory requirements are more stringent and consumers are more insistent than ever on knowing about the food supply chain that brings them the products that they eat. Coping with these demands in legacy systems can be a nightmare. What you need is up-to-date supply chain technology to increase the data you collect and make it easier to see what is going on in your supply chain. In this quest, there are three technologies that many find invaluable.

Do you ever feel that, despite many advances in supply chain management tools, keeping up is harder than ever? It's not your imagination. These days, most businesses are wrestling with a combination of modern and legacy systems that don't always mesh as they should. The result is inefficiencies, delays and other frustrations. Newer food supply chain technology brings hope for a supply chain that is more cost-effective and efficient than ever before.

From ice cream to burritos, foodborne illnesses made headlines in 2015. As companies like Chipotle, Blue Bell and Costco struggle to stage a comeback after major E.coli and listeria outbreaks, could the “Internet of Things” offer a solution? Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) — the network of physical objects (“things”) with embedded sensors and electronics for data communication with the external environment — boasts some 14 billion objects connected devices. Analysts estimate that number could be anywhere from 20 billion to 100 billion by 2020. And that could be big news for the food industry.

It used to be that a sous vide setup required significant capital investment and a lot of space for equipment: a large water bath, a water pump, a heat regulator. But in recent years, several innovative, small-scale sous vide circulators designed for the smaller kitchen have made it to market, making the cooking technique a viable experiment for many restaurants, caterers and even home chefs.

So how can you choose the best sous vide setup for your needs? The answer to that question begins with the answer to the question: "What is your intended end use?"

The food industry is quickly being reshaped by the rapid confluence of new science, consumer trends, and big data. Think about how far we've come in just the past 20 years: food e-commerce, nutrition blogs, the proliferation of sustainable sourcing and recycled packaging. We've seen advances in food product development that would have been unimaginable a few short decades ago.

So what does this year hold in store? Where can we continue to improve? In what areas are more innovations sorely needed? Well, there are three areas in which we foresee see big developments in the near future.

There's no question that humanity is going to have to rely on the food industry to continue to come up with new ways of feeding the world's growing population. From increasing agricultural efficiency to finding different ways of achieving the same nutritional goals, the need for innovation is critical and ever increasing.

But this year, we may have seen the advent of what may end up being the most promising new food technology in human history: 3D food printing. And already, the technology is changing the way food producers and food entrepreneurs are thinking about business.

Like many new food technologies, sous vide has slowly begun its ascent into the mass market. The flavor and texture profiles that can be realized under a slow, low-temperature cook, as well as the potential time and cost savings, are simply too desirable for chefs and food entrepreneurs to pass up. And that is triggering an influx of new devices that rely on the principles of sous vide to push the trend to the next level.

The food packing industry has always struggled to minimize production costs and keep injuries to laborers to a minimum. The advent of new robotic manufacturing technology in the late 1950s and early 1960s offered the food industry a way to do just that, but machines were expensive to purchase and maintain. The capital start-up costs were often prohibitive, however, so many packing companies chose to soldier on with manual assembly lines.

When consumer goods are your brand’s bread and butter, there are plenty of factors outside your control that influence how you develop and implement new food technology. If environmental factors like water limitations are not currently impacting your food and beverage business, there’s a good chance they will in the very near future.

Reduced water supply, in particular, poses a fundamental risk to many consumer goods companies, hobbling their ability to innovate new food technologies, methods and products.