Industrial Food Production & Automation: An Engineering PB & J

As urbanization increases along with the population, more demand is put on the food and beverage industry to meet increasing demands. The industry is expected to grow at about a 12% rate for the next 4 years, which means manufacturers and processors have a big call to answer. Food and beverage automation companies have been waiting in the wings for just this moment.

Where industries like metals and machine builders have been on the front of adopting automation, the food industry lagged. This can largely be attributed to the difficulty of the transition as well as the unknown. Consumables – from raw material acquisition to production, processing and storage – are heavily regulated by the FDA and USDA.

Manufacturers don’t have time to adopt a new automation system only to find out their product quality is failing, their setup no longer complies with industry standards or, worse, an unreported defect results in a national recall. They need to be sure that upon implementation they can be sure operations are already at or better than previous baselines. That’s where food and beverage automation companies can step in to help.

Understanding Food & Beverage Automation: Process & Purpose

Automation adds value at every step of food and beverage production, which means companies can reap a host of benefits by partnering with the right automation company. Process control can be applied to:

• Raw material acquisition: This includes sourcing ingredients, ensuring quality control and storing them properly.
• Processing and preparation: Ingredients are transformed, cleaned, cooked, or mixed according to the recipe.
• Packaging and filling: Products are placed in containers then labeled and sealed.
• Storage and distribution: Finished products are stored in controlled environments and shipped to retailers or distributors.

The trends we’re seeing in food and beverage automation are diverse. This allows room for a creative approach to automation that food processing system integrators can leverage to provide automation solutions that are best for the present and the future of the company:

• Robotic arms: These versatile machines can perform tasks like picking and placing ingredients, packing finished products and operating processing equipment.
• Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs): These self-driving vehicles transport materials and finished products throughout the production facility.
• Vision systems/Visualization: Cameras and sensors can inspect products for defects, ensuring quality control.
• Automated cleaning and sanitation systems: Robots can perform cleaning and sanitizing tasks to maintain a hygienic production environment.

Benefits of Utilizing Automation Companies to Improve Product Quality

Food and beverage manufacturers expect to use 50% of their annual capital on automation technology, including AI and Industry 4.0. 70% of manufacturers report productivity as the biggest drive for beginning this digital transformation, and nearly 80% report labor shortages being another main factor.

With skyrocketing growth in the industry, which is expected to affect North American food producers disproportionately, the risk of lagging behind competitors is now ever-present and ever-increasing. Automation is no longer an option, and neither is sitting on the idea until it becomes comfortable.

The good news is, while implementing a facility-wide automation system with integrated controls is a significant investment, the tangible ROI of a top-tier system created by a leading food and beverage process automator is indisputable. Manufacturers can expect:

• Improved throughput: Automation allows manufacturers to scale as demand increases.
• Increased quality control: Automating a process eliminates human error, which increases quality control, whether it’s capping bottles or counting packages on a pallet.
• Improved compliance: An automation system eliminates the need to update or retrain workers on industry regulations, and consistency ensures programmed benchmarks are always met.
• End-to-end traceability: A robust and well-integrated control system provides real-time data and reporting at every step of the process.
• Improved labor logistics: Repetitive motion tasks or dangerous tasks can be automated, improving worker safety. Automation also avoids operational bottlenecks created by labor shortages.
• Better flexibility: Automation can ensure that whether adjusting a process or adding several more, your facility can pivot, adapt and scale as needed without the need for complete system rebuilds or expensive retrofits.

Alternative & Cultured Meats: The New Food & Beverage Automation Frontier

There is an emerging market within the food processing industry that, while only just starting to gain footing with the FDA, is sure to become a large part of industrial food production in the coming decades: ethical meat production. Both plant-based alternative meats and cultivated proteins require different automation system design than traditional meats/proteins. Consider:

• Meat processing: Traditional meat processing involves manual processes and source materials that are irregular in size and quality. Meanwhile, lab-grown meats are all consistent size and quality, and do not require butchering. This implies the potential for meat processing to become less labor-intensive, and that effective automation solutions can be better streamlined.
• Recipe control: For example, where traditional chicken fingers are simply chicken with a bread coating, plant-based “chicken” fingers are a careful mix of proteins, herbs, stabilizers, and specific mixing/cooking processes that help simulate chicken texture. Plant-based meats require more complex control systems because they’re integrating so many interconnected processes.

Lab-cultured proteins are specifically tricky, because will require a hybrid approach to food automation and biologics automation. Manufacturers and startups in this industry are dealing with both the food and drug portion of FDA regulations because of the lab-driven nature of cell-cultivated meats. As well, factory automation for cultivated meat simply isn’t a thing that exists right now. There is no template for automation engineers to rely on in their system design/build.

Food and beverage automation companies need not only domain expertise in the food industry, but also the life sciences industry to provide these clients with the bleeding-edge automation systems they need to disrupt the meat market. And a creative approach doesn’t hurt, either.

E Tech Group: A Food & Beverage System Integrator for the Future of Food

As one of North America’s leading automation system integrators, E Tech Group stays ahead of the curve when it comes to automation services. With a division dedicated to the food and beverage production industry, we have automation engineers and staff with expertise in the specific needs of this market. And that includes cultivated meats – we recently built a PlantPAx 5.0 building control system for one of the first companies to gain FDA-approval to create cell-cultured meats for human consumption.

E Tech Group has provided industrial clients across sectors with unmatched automation services for over 30 years. Our collaborative, client-focused approach coupled with our ability to provide seamless transitions upon system implementation mean our clients are left after project end with state-of-the-art, flexible automation systems that benefit them now and as they continue to grow. Robust security features, custom control panel design and top-tier automation technology make E Tech Group the ideal choice as your Main Automation Partner.