Leaking protective gas packaging, cardboard magazines that still need to be refilled manually, and plastic foreign objects in the product stream: Several of the developments that the DLG (German Agricultural Society) has developed with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) are now being used in the production of the new packaging. International FoodTec Award 2027 identify problems that packaging and production managers are familiar with from everyday life. Overall 21 projects from eight European countries has been awarded by an international jury composed of scientists, researchers and industry representatives, with five of them receiving gold medals and 16 silver medals. The awards will be presented at the February 23, 2027 at Anuga FoodTec in Cologne delivered.
The award is presented every three years. Gold is awarded to products and services with a new technological concept that enables a new process or significantly improves an existing one, according to the criteria of the DLG. Silver goes to existing products that have been technically developed in such a way that their function or process becomes significantly better. The following selection presents the award winners that are particularly relevant for packaging, quality assurance and the supply chain.
Gold for aseptic logistics and liquid analysis
According to the jury’s reasoning, anyone who wanted to transport liquid food over long distances had previously had to either dry it up energy-intensively and then reconstitute it later, or fill it into aseptic disposable packaging. GEA Liquid Technologies Germany and Oriental Tanks from Singapore they set the GEA Mobile Aseptic Solution In contrast, a reusable platform consists of fixed-installation filling and emptying stations and a mobile ISO tank container with 20,000 liters Capacity. The container is designed for aseptic, temperature-controlled transport by road, rail and ship as well as for temporary storage. At the heart of the development is a patented continuous pressure overlaySterile gas maintains a positive pressure gradient throughout the entire logistics cycle, thus preventing recontamination by microorganisms. This allows milk, dairy products, and plant-based beverages to be transported as liquid goods in large quantities. The jury sees this as a way to reduce process steps, product losses, and the reliance on disposable packaging. A trial run using UHT milk between Japan and Singapore demonstrated the practical suitability of the entire chain, from filling to shipping by sea to emptying.
Gold goes to ColloidTek from Tampere, Finland. The company implements cleaning processes and product changes that often run in a timed manner or based on estimates and manual sampling in filling and processing lines. Collo Liquid Process Intelligence works with one High-frequency sensor, The system is integrated directly into the pipeline and analyzes the electromagnetic properties of the liquid. Signal processing and machine learning then detect product states, phase transitions, concentrations, and deviations in real time, regardless of color, turbidity, or viscosity. The jury’s reasoning quantifies the effect: Demand-based control of CIP cleaning reduces the Water consumption by 15 to 25 percent, By precisely detecting the interface between the product and the water, 15 to 25 percent of the previously lost product quantities could be recovered. The system is already being used industrially.
The three other gold medals concern process technology: GEA Process Engineering and Arla Foods they receive a high-temperature heat pump for AddCool, integrated into an industrial dairy spray dryer, Revo Foods from Vienna for the 3D MassFormer extrusion system and Eberhardt from Lichtenau for the TT Bastard 160, which processes injected and premixed meat and fish products in a continuous inline process.
Sealing test and carton feeding in the packaging line
The silver medal for packaging is aimed most directly at Bizerba. LeakSecure examines protective gas packaging (Modified Atmosphere Packaging, MAP) Inline and 100 percent airtight. Even the smallest leaks allow protective gas to escape, accelerate spoilage, and lead to complaints. The system operates using a patented sensor architecture 16 integrated CO2 gas analyzers And according to the jury, it can not only detect but also locate leaks, regardless of environmental influences. All test data is captured and evaluated via the digital platform BRAIN2, allowing recurring error patterns to be identified and packaging materials and sealing processes to be optimized based on data. In a one-year industrial deployment, the Leakage rate according to the justification is between four and five percent at 0.52 percent. Thus, up to around 484,000 defective packaging items are avoided annually and manual inspections are reduced by 55 minutes per day.
The Cama Group from Italy for her ACL system (Automatic Carton Loading) Excellent. It automates one of the last largely manual tasks in highly automated packaging lines, the Filling the magazines with cardboard cutouts. The activity is physically demanding and was considered difficult to automate because cardboard stacks are often damaged, distorted or of varying quality. Cama combines these factors Collaborative robotics with 2D and 3D cameras and AI-based image processing, It automatically detects pallet patterns, orientation, intermediate layers and cardboard stacks. Grippers with distance and torque sensors handle different cardboard sizes. Interlayer and tape removal, cardboard opening and automatic format changes can be integrated as well. The system works in a collaborative environment with humans, can be connected to autonomous mobile robots (AMR), and provides operational data for monitoring and analysis.
AI and microwaves for quality assurance
Soft and hard plastics, rubber, wood, fruit kernels or aluminum foil in pumpable foods are difficult for metal detectors, X-ray and optical inspection systems to detect because these foreign objects are neither metallic nor dense enough. Food Radar Systems from Gothenburg receives silver for a microwave-based detection platform, which measures directly in the closed pipeline. The current generation combines a multidirectional microwave detection with the AirZip technology, This system removes air bubbles and thus reduces secondary leakage. A speed-adaptive leakage system limits the amount of leakage according to the jury to an average of about 0.5 kilograms per event.
Polysense Instead of sampling-based quality control, Gent has replaced it with continuous inline testing. The Polysense Qualify module checks all products using image processing for size, shape, color, texture, and defects. Polysense AutoControl automatically adjusts machine parameters based on this data and corrects deviations within seconds. The jury’s justification states that for industrial applications, average yield increases by up to five percent., 40 percent less waste and 45 percent less quality fluctuations between the layers.
The Brussels-based company backbone ai will be used for a AI-based compliance operating system It aggregates data from ERP, SharePoint, email, laboratory and document management systems into a unified quality data model and automatically checks for compliance with standards such as IFS, BRCGS or FSSC 22000. According to the justification, the administrative workload in quality management is reduced by up to 70 percent.
Measurement technology and hygienic design
Two silver medals go to Endress+Hauser. The magnetically inductive flow meter Proline Promag H with the option 0 x DN Full Bore measures directly behind bends, valves, or changes in cross-section, without straight inlet and outlet sections and without narrowing the pipe cross-section. Several electrodes in the measuring tube capture the entire flow profile; according to the jury, the measurement accuracy is ±0.5 percent; the design is 3-A-certified. The sensor Liquiphant Multiparameter QMX63 It continuously measures density, viscosity, sound velocity and temperature in the process and communicates via single pair Ethernet.
SKF receives the award for the Food line ball bearing units: Fully sealed, grease-free bearings, They are designed in accordance with EHEDG guidelines and contain blue, visually detectable components that are intended to prevent lubricant leakage and the ingress of impurities.
The remaining silver medals go to Pantarein Water together with Mars for a water treatment plant in Mechelen, Belgium, at GEA Mechanical Equipment Italia for the Ariete Homogenizer 2.0, on Günther Maschinenbau for a continuous injection system, at Handtmann for the form system FS 511, at Vito for the VITO VL oil management system, to the PolySto Group for CleanRock pedestal systems, at Elea Technology for the inline analysis PiCon and at Miveg for an automated slicing system. The DLG awards the prize in cooperation with Anuga FoodTec of the Cologne trade fair and several specialist media. The jury's reasons for all 21 award winners are available under http://www.foodtecaward.com retrievable.
