This was a day when the Innovation Flow Lounge was packed to the gunnels with visitors keen to discover the market drivers fuelling innovation in the beverage industry, and the solutions available to help manufacturers tap into the trends.
Hosted by FoodBev Media, the conference on Beverage Innovation: creating a successful product drew a record crowd to the Lounge, where product tasting also piqued interest.
Out in the halls, I visited Zanasi, where Andrea Borsari talked me through the excellent, new Z640Plus printing system that allows two lines to be printed simultaneously and independently of one another. Critically able to provide high quality printing on porous or non-porous surfaces, the centrally controlled, Trident-driven printers can print up to 100mm in height.
After an hour of chatting and watching the printers in action, I was convinced that the many benefits the Z640Plus has to offer were groundbreaking. If you’re going to get excited about a printer, then this was the one for me!
Klueber Lubrication has also been innovating, and its new foam spray lubricant combines the advantages of oil and foam. Applied even to vertical or inverted surfaces, the non-drip Klueberfoam dispenses the required synthetic oil to the friction point gradually, as the foam ‘converts’ back to oil. Owing to the capillary effect, only the quantity of oil is used that’s actually needed, while the rest of the oil remains in the foam. Ingenious!
From ingenious solutions for processing to ingenious methods of dispensing flavours and the Drop by Drop innovation on the Tate & Lyle stand. Here, Bill Bruce and I had a chat with Abigail Storms, whose pearls of insight we captured on video (available on FoodBev.com very soon). We tried the grapefruit and berry drinks that are created when the little vial of Drop by Drop magic ingredients is squeezed to add the concentrated flavour and Sucralose into a plain water to the desired concentration. Very tasty, and very convenient for consumers to carry with them to zing up their water.
After further discussions with Sirine Assaf of Pall, Mario Fortnagel of Trotec, Anestis Sifniadis of Automation System Hellas and others, it was time for a quick drink on the SMC stand and a chat and a peep at the solenoid that is so perfectly created that it needs no rubber seal.
Then it was on to the highlight of the day, the Beverage Innovation Awards in the Drinktec Forum. What a fabulous event: very inspiring, exciting and enjoyable – well done Bill Bruce and Ruth McMenamin for organising such a super evening. A big sorry to those who missed out this year, but congratulations to all those who walked away with Awards for their excellent innovations. A wonderful celebration of creativity, entrepreneurialism, team work and innovation in the industry.
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