Automation and digitisation are advancing in the food industry, particularly in the area of inline quality management where continuously monitoring packaging production with machine vision increases efficiency and significantly reduces the number of recalls. With the support of MVTec Software, PackCheck has developed a modular solution for ensuring packaging quality.

Stockport-based Macpac has designed and produced an innovative dome-shaped style pack for Martin's Chocolatier's premium new Snow Globe chocolate Santa and snowball truffles product.

Turkish-style meat specialist Solmaz Foods never undervalues the importance of food safety. The Canadian-based halal meat processor describes its four Fortress Technology metal detectors as "essential equipment" that shows regulatory food quality control inspectors that they have the right safeguards in place.

When Swiss dairy manufacturer Zuger Frischkase looked to optimise its CIP processes, it turned to sensor specialist Baumer for a conductivity sensor.

When bakery industry machine supplier Wymbs Engineering set about upgrading an existing design for improved productivity, it set actuator supplier Ewellix a challenge: to deliver a motion solution that would enable the new generation machine to operate a third faster than the previous one.

Producing several million sustainable beverage cans per hour across its European plants, a can manufacturer needed to avoid unplanned machine downtime. Turning to Schaeffler's OPTIME condition monitoring solution has helped to prevent 360 hours of downtime.

In a secondary packaging operation, bags of products like confectionery are often 'shingled', a process of layering them into a cardboard shipping box in alternating overlapped layers. Photoelectric sensors with background-suppression from Contrinex have provided a reliable means of checking the correct quantity of bags in each box.

One of the largest premium flour and ingredient companies in North America, Ardent Mills, recently implemented automatic testing on several of its conveyor Fortress Technology metal detectors. A number of the company's packaging lines are now also using digital reporting to enhance efficiency, food safety and traceability.

The renowned Belgian brewery Chimay, known for its traditional Trappist beer, relies on maintenance-free spherical bearings from igus in its bottling plant. By replacing rusty, seized ball bearings with lubrication-free igubal H3 bearing inserts, the brewery was able to increase efficiency and reduce maintenance.

CKF Systems has developed develop a new bespoke robotic de-palletising and re-palletising system for Primafruit at its site in the Vale of Evesham. Primafruit is a primary supplier of a broad range of fruit.