European FoodTec Award 2009

At this year's Anuga FoodTec, DLG e.V. will, for the seventh time, be presenting the European FoodTec Awards, in conjunction with the EFFoST (European Federation of Food Science and Technology), the "European Dairy Magazine" and the "Deutsche Milchwirtschaft" trade journals published by Th. Mann in Gelsenkirchen, the "Fleischwirtschaft" and "Fleischwirtschaft international" trade journals published by the Deutscher Fachverlag in Frankfurt a.M. and the "Lebensmitteltechnik" trade journal published by LT Food Medien-Verlag in Hamburg.

28 entries from five European countries were submitted in response to this year's advertisement, providing the international jury yet again with an extensive range of subjects to tackle. Although assessing the quality of the submitted innovations was not an easy task, the jury recommended that the sponsors of the European FoodTec Awards should confer gold medals on two innovations and silver medals on a further three.

European FoodTec Awards in Gold were won in 2009 by:

One gold medal went for the first time to a software company, GRS Software GmbH based in Homburg an der Saar, for its GRS SIGNUM application,

a so-called 32-bit fat client application, consisting of various modules which can automatically generate a product declaration to include the list of ingredients, nutritional values, allergen and GMO status and product specifications. The meat products sector has its own separate module which, regardless of nesting depth, can perform the essential calculations to determine excess amounts of fat and connective tissue and the ratio of water to protein.

A second gold medal went to Hertel GmbH in Salzburg for its innovative rectification wort boiling system.

This is a boiling system which involves both rectification and desorption. This allows the full extent of the evaporation needed to remove unwanted flavours when boiling the wort to be reduced to a minimum and results in huge energy savings without having to accept worts or beers of a poorer quality.

European FoodTec Awards in Silver were won by:

A silver medal was awarded to the CutControl and CutVision software packages developed by K+G Wetter GmbH based in Biedenkopf-Breidenstein.

The CutControl module makes an automated cutting process a really practical possibility at last while the CutVision module automatically generates the associated documentation. Employing the two modules together increases productivity and, at the same time, significantly enhances quality assurance and production control.

A silver medal was also awarded to Intralox L.L.C. Europe based in Amsterdam for its innovative developments in conveying solutions,

namely the Seam-Free Hygienic Solutions and the Activated Roller Belt technology, which have now proven their worth under practical conditions in food processing plants.

The final silver medal goes to Mettler-Toledo Garvens GmbH based in Giesen for its X-ray CombiWeigher XS3 AdvanCheK

which combines accurate dynamic weighing with a reliable X-ray-based foreign body detection system. The main advantage of this system is that it includes a genuinely dynamic control scale employing EMFR weighing cell technology which allows products to be dynamically weighed with great accuracy and meets all national calibration requirements.