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  1. Food Packaging And Brand Protection: It's Simple, Right? 1/23/2018

    Everyone knows packaging is primarily about the product itself; protecting, presenting, and conveying it. But, what does packaging do for brand integrity? The answer is more complex than you may think.

  2. New Product Development: The Challenges Of Decoding The Consumer Voice 1/8/2018

    In the food industry, the consumer’s voice is extremely important to keep in mind as new products and quality improvements are devised every day. We all strive for customer satisfaction, but the customer’s voice, documented through consumer surveys, complaint tracking, and social media, isn’t always satisfaction per se. To interpret the feedback and translate it into formulation changes and flavor concepts can be a skill in and of itself.

  3. Why Food Manufacturing Needs An Unorthodox Approach 12/19/2017

    Food manufacturing is not a typical manufacturing operation; it faces unique dilemmas compared to conventional manufacturing. Because of this, the mindset of food manufacturers must also be unique. This article relates conventional manufacturing operations with food manufacturing, shows why the food industry needs a different mindset, and provides approaches to change the mentality of the industry.

  4. 5 Food Safety Focus Areas For 2018 12/14/2017

    2017 was an incredible year for food safety filled with challenges in identifying key issues having a pivotal impacton the F&B industry. That said, I believe these five food safety topics brought revolutionary changes to the way the food industry tackled food safety issues and will alter how we approach food safety and how we do business in 2018 and beyond.

  5. Third-Party Audits: Trials, Tribulations, And How To Exceed Requirements 12/6/2017

    GFSI schemes are used as the base requirement for many supply chain verification and supplier approval programs, but are customers using them independently? In many incidences, I've noted customers are taking only the GFSI certificate as a verification step without fully understanding the challenges the schemes are having. Here, I review those challenges.

  6. Tackling Food Fraud: Inside The EU-China-Safe Partnership 11/28/2017

    Over the past decade, scandals related to adulterated and fake food have made international headlines and generated waves of consumer backlash. This column will explore a new partnership between China and The EU that aims to take down food fraud.

  7. Germicidal LEDs: A Viable Light Source For Food Safety 11/21/2017

    In addition to their use for Point-of-Use Water Disinfection, UV-C LED-based solutions have now been demonstrated to offer novel and unique approaches to food production sanitation.

  8. 5 Ways Food Companies Can Win In The Digital Era 11/17/2017

    In 2017, the food industry was filled with disruption — from Amazon acquiring Whole Foods, to significant growth in the meal-kit industry. Because of this, food companies are taking a holistic look at customer bases and determining any possible competitive advantage for 2018. In the year ahead, we'll see five ways the food industry will become more agile and opportunistic in order to win consumer loyalty.

  9. Modernized cGMP: The Nuts And Bolts Of A Preventive Controls Food Safety Plan 11/7/2017

    Many HACCP plans are not well-integrated with prerequisite programs. Because of this, the food safety system isn't robust. In the first article of a two-part series, I will show that focusing on prerequisite programs, starting with cGMPs, is the best starting point for converting a HACCP plan into a Preventive Controls Food Safety Plan.

  10. Hand Washing: The Foundation Of Reduced Microbial Contamination 10/17/2017

    Everyone knows hand washing is a basic requirement that leads to significant reductions in food safety risk. But, this basic action is often overlooked and left out of internal audits and inspections. This article describes what proper hand washing is, how to design a hand washing station, and offers advice on establishing a culture of hand washing.