Quality and Design

The aspect of quality in the food supply chain has come to dominate the field dealing with basic commodities relating to food. Nowadays it is essential to ensure the quality and safety of food, and these key factors are just as important for agri-food companies as the variety of their product range.

Italian consumers are increasingly attentive to the properties of food, 61.8% say they are well-informed about the properties of what they buy (Source: Censis-Coldiretti); the same attention is expressed by consumers in many parts of the world.

Along with the choice of higher-quality food, there is a decrease in the quantities purchased. This trend is consistent with attention to food waste by consumers who are actively attempting to reduce the amount of food thrown away. The quarantine imposed by Covid-19 has further underscored this point.

This attention to reducing waste can also be seen in production, where it is not only a necessity dictated by ethics but also, if not mainly, for reasons of efficiency. Multiple production engineering solutions exist.

Today, selecting and eliminating non-compliant products that could contaminate an entire batch is rendered possible by sophisticated systems. Of equal importantance is being able to separate different qualities of raw materials and employ them differently, and to ensure product traceability along the entire supply chain, from the harvest (or origin) to the sales outlet.

Design plays a significant role in this area by contributing strategically to creating machinery used for quality control that is safe for operators and for final consumers.

It is also necessary to ensure the reliability and speed of testing, in order not to slow down the processing time (tack time) of the production chain. The implementation of this type of machinery should, in fact, contribute to increasing the efficiency of the production chain by reducing processing times according to the principles of Lean Production.

A design studio is capable of making these machines suitable for the most diverse needs, working on the user interface and machine architecture to render them optimal for a wide range of uses.

The agri-food industry is the largest industry in Italy in terms of turnover, with a value of EUR 140 billion, and is second only to the metal manufacturing industry by number of companies (56,750).

It is the second largest in Europe (after France), in terms of number of companies, but only fifth for added value generated. It is comprised of a patchwork of micro-small companies that leverage the superior quality of the products offered. Quality is also expressed in the number of certified products (PDO, DOCG, PGI and TSG), for which it leads Europe.

Other countries with a particularly significant agri-food industry include France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. The leading exporters of food processing machinery are (in order): Germany, Italy, and the USA, while the main importers (again in order) are: the USA, Germany, England, Canada, and Turkey.

The ability to perform in-depth testing of different foods will offer companies in the agri-food industry a significant competitive advantage.  New technologies make it possible to segment product ranges by distinguishing certified higher-quality products destined for the higher-end of the market from those that are more suited for other categories or uses.

Automation will play a crucial role by proposing new production and processing models. Automation and bio-technology will be increasingly dominant, maximizing the efficiency of the production factors: fewer workers (especially seasonal) will be needed, and only about a tenth of the water will be consumed thanks to new techniques such as vertical farming.

Moreover, we will witness greater attention to hygiene, especially as it relates to food. This aspect is further emphasized given that the spread of Covid-19 has produced a permanent change in our habits according to more than half of consumers in developed countries (Source: Mckinsey). It will be essential for agri-food companies to guarantee the healthiness of the foods they sell, by ensuring that they do not come into contact with agents that are harmful to health.

From a design point of view, the use of bacteriologically stable materials such as stainless steel permits the product development of machinery and testing equipment that is easy to sanitize and does not contaminate food.