Food@Manchester

FMEG - Food Security and Traceability

The UK’s Defra Sponsored Food Manufacturing Engineering Group (F.M.E.G.) held its workshop on Food Security and Traceability at Manchester University on the 2^nd April 2014. This event broght together some 40 registrants from the food manufacturing, equipment supply, system integration, retail and academic sectors.

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Melanie Leech the Director General of the UK’s Food and Drink Federation www.fdf.org.uk set the scene by emphasising the importance of the topic and how the industry was addressing some of the issues recently raised in the European wide food supply chain. This theme was continued by Lucy Foster, Food Science Programme Manager at the U.K’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) who outlined recent Government Policy and described evolving E.U. legislation on the matter.

An opportunity was taken to present details of a recent E.C. FW7 research and development project PicknPack which focusses on innovative aspects of flexible automation for food assembly and packaging. The presentation was made by Erik Pekkeriet from the University of Wageningen who is the project coordinator. Erik presentation fitted neatly into the theme of the workshop, stressing the advantages of automation which imposed strict data acquisition protocols and of course the associated developments in product traceability which are a feature of the project and related to work undertaken at Manchester University which is a member of the consortium.

Simon Lushey, Specialist Food Technical Manager at Marks & Spencer gave an overview of the retailer perspective and the strict traceability protocols demanded by his company. His presentation was supported by two, excellent detailed case studies from his supply chain. One by Lisa Senior of Park Cakes which focussed on bakery products and the other by Mhairi Forbes of Scotbeef who focussed on meat products. The latter of course was of particular interest given the recent public interest in this particular sector.

Mike Dudbridge, Principle Lecturer at the National Food Manufacturing Centre at the University of Lincoln rounded off the meeting by giving a plant managers perspective and outlining the benefits of deploying modern computing/ informatics technology.

The forum session led to a lively debate particularly on the latter technology and it is clear that academia has the potential to provide useful solutions for the industry and this theme will be progressed in further research brokerage sessions organised by FMEG.

The response to Erik’s PicknPack presentation were very positive and the community is keen to have more technical details as and when they can be released.

The opportunity was taken to present a draft programme for the next PicknPack workshop which will feature aspects of automated food assembly and packaging and be supported by a small exhibition on innovative technology of food processing at the University of Lincoln on June 25^th. For further details please contact picknpack@manchester.ac.uk

For researchers interested in this event. Contact John Gray.