SPONSORED FEATURE
the control of raw materials. Consequently, the easily-accessible raw materials are used fi rst, leaving those at the back of the warehouse to go quietly out of date. In addition, where food needs to be prepared, such as peeling potatoes and other vegetables, some foods will inevitably be wasted through heavy-handedness, lack of training and lack of supervision. Other foods are wasted through poor batch/ recipe control, where whole batches can be ruined by the simple addition of too much or too little of a key ingredient. Such a rejected batch may well go to landfi ll or for pig food, but either way, it is food waste for the food chain in which its use was originally determined. As most production processes include several operations before the food goes to packaging, entire batches of food can be wasted at any stage. Once the fi lling and packaging stages are
fi nally reached, more still can be wasted in spillages and overfi ll, incorrect packaging, labelling, and so on.
Average quantity law – the friend of the manufacturer It is rarely appreciated by the consumer that some of the food packages may contain 1-2% less food, yet still be perfectly legal according to the ‘Average Quantity Law’ legislation. For example, 1% less milk in a 1 litre container would amount to two teaspoonfuls. Do we really believe that this would be missed or even noticed by the consumer? However, for the high-volume milk producer packing say half a million litres per annum, 10ml per litre can be the
diff erence between profi t or loss, especially with so much of the food production industry operating on small net profi t margins.
Saveable waste in
manufacturing These internal factory issues, including incorrect batches, spillage, overfi ll, incorrect labelling and allergen control and are all preventable at the manufacturing stage, both easily and cost-eff ectively.
Time for openness to save critical food wastage
During my manufacturing careers spanning over fi ve decades or more, I am sorry to say that I have seen all too many examples of food wastage that fi t many of the above categories, upon which the originators either do nothing or not enough. I have seen examples where incorrectly-labelled batches and inaccurate mixes have simply been buried in the overhead and ‘lost’. This creates its own problems because it provides no opportunity for root cause analysis. Fortunately, nowadays, more companies
Cartoons reproduced with the permission of Private Eye
are open to discuss these problems and are willing to implement solutions that help to determine root cause and thereby fi x the problem, rather than burying it. More companies need to get on
board with this ideology, recognise the precious and costly nature of all the food that we produce and that every one of their employees can be imbued with a responsibility to reduce food wastage wherever they see it, rather than cover it up, for fear of the old ‘blame culture’ rearing its ugly head. Although there are plenty of external factors beyond factory control causing increasing prices to retailers, the retailer will still wish to ensure that every eff ort is being made within the food production network in order to reduce wastage and improve effi ciencies. Otherwise, pre- packers can still expect many requests to retailers to allow price rises to be rejected. So, the responsibility still rests with the manufacturers to do everything within their power to reduce costs and improve effi ciencies.
It’s time for resolutions As mentioned earlier, all of these in-factory problems have a resolution, whether they originate from machine failure, inbred attitudes, lack of understanding or lack of training and we at Harford Control have the tools, techniques and capability to help. We are just a phone call away.
CONTACT:
Harford Control
www.harfordcontrol.com; 01225 764461
automationmagazine.co.uk
Automation | July/August 2022
33
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