Automation in the food sector, a strong mix of ingredients

The food industry is one of the strongholds within the Belgian industrial landscape. Thanks to its quality, diversity and innovative approach, the sector is growing enormously and now accounts for a tenth of our total exports. This growth is reflected in employment, exports, turnover and investments. The food industry is therefore in need of innovative technology in order to reach higher efficiency, a more sustainable approach and a higher level of automation. These companies are therefore increasingly knocking on Flanders Make's door.
Just like our traditional manufacturing companies, the food industry is struggling with a tight labour market. Finding and training people to perform certain repetitive tasks is a constant challenge. One possible answer is extensive digitisation, which can also lead to an increase in scale that is difficult to achieve with purely manual labour. By producing food more efficiently and sustainably, companies can grow, even with a tight labour market.
We at Flanders Make are therefore increasingly receiving requests from this sector to jointly apply our accumulated expertise to work floors in the food industry. Climate change, intensive agriculture, the reduction of pesticides and harmful emission gases are important issues to address and are high on the agenda. We are already working closely with companies in the agriculture industry to make cultivation and harvesting more sustainable and efficient by introducing, for example, electrification and precision farming techniques. Meanwhile, we are also introducing new techniques of automation, improved ergonomics, training and quality control in the processing industry.
Digital work instructions and quality control at patisserie
Puratos is a Belgian family-owned company specialising in providing ingredients and services for the patisserie, bakery and chocolate industries. In their more than 100 years of existence, they grew into a multinational company with branches in more than 80 countries and more than 10,000 employees. Investing in R&D is part of their DNA for them and ensures they remain a major player in the market, which is why they have a team of more than 1,000 researchers and technical advisors on board worldwide.
In their Puradome FoodTech Centre, together with Flanders Make, they developed a system that can both show digital work instructions on a display and perform quality control of patisserie pieces, thus partially replacing the physical presence of chef-pastry chefs. For example, a pastry chef develops a particular pastry and its preparation can be taught digitally to other pastry chefs. The system provides step-by-step instructions that visually show how a chef performed the preparation, then a vision system also goes on to check whether the steps were performed correctly. The order of steps and the correct placement of small details is important in this respect and is also evaluated and adjusted if necessary.
This demo is currently on display at their PuraDome FoodTech Centre in Groot-Bijgaarden, where they are demonstrating new and innovative techniques and technologies as part of their "Mission to Mars" programme. The unit will move to their training centre for training patisserie chefs at a later stage.
Making smoothie machines smart
Alberts is a company that produces food machines for shops, schools and businesses, among others. The machine prepares smoothies or hot soups at the touch of a button by grinding, blending and preparing a number of frozen ingredients. Users can even use a mobile app to put together customised blends according to their taste or dietary needs. This way, any organisation can offer a healthy and tasty snack or meal in a small area. The machine also cleans itself to keep maintenance minimal.
Flanders Make supported several steps of the development. First and foremost in the development of the machine itself, which obviously has to be connected to receive orders via the app, but also to be able to carry out certain checks remotely. For this, on the advice of Flanders Make, Alberts uses EtherCat, a communication protocol for real-time controlled systems. But Flanders Make was also involved in making the production processes of the machines more ergonomic. In particular, when assembling the crusher, which crushes the frozen ingredients, some operations were not ergonomic for the operator. In the ongoing research, a cobot takes over certain tasks in that assembly, for example by holding heavy parts while the operator attaches them. Alberts is also adapting certain parts in upcoming versions of the smoothie machine to facilitate production and assembly together with robots/cobots.
Flexible chocolate machine
Belgian chocolate is a sought-after product worldwide and our machines to produce chocolate are also very popular. Prefamac builds machines for the chocolate sector and for industrial manufacturers of biscuits, wafers, biscuits and cake. Some 95% of those machines they then export worldwide. The demand for customisation is also increasing in the chocolate sector, for example to produce chocolates with more specific shapes or fillings in addition to the common pralines. These smaller series are usually made by Prefamac by hand, because it was not so easy to convert the machines for mass production.
Together, Prefamac and Flanders Make developed a modular machine that can be flexibly converted to produce different chocolates with one machine. Differences in chocolate layers and combinations with ground nuts can be smoothly accommodated by the machine, as well as more complex shapes than what was previously possible by machine. Finally, the machine includes a vision system to monitor production.
After a successful proof-of-concept, Prefamac is meanwhile further developing the machine with its customers in order to get this technology fully market-ready as well.
Industry 4.0 on your plate?
So, in the food sector too, industry 4.0 techniques are breaking through to improve products and production processes. We are therefore happy to support companies from this and other sectors in finding solutions to their challenges!