Welcome to our midweek bonus episode of the Food For Thought Podcast. 

Like your cellphone, your personal computer and your television, technology marches on and the latest editions really do have more functionality than the previous versions. That's also true for your ERP system. Advanced Requirements Planning not only accounts for expiring lots, but also helps to plan for yield losses as well as overlapping operations. 

During a recent webinar, Food Processing Editor in Chief Dave Fusaro sat down with Kate Warner, Senior Solution Engineer for Plex Systems, to discusses why food & beverage manufactures need more from their Material Requirements Planning. 

In this episode of the podcast, you can listen to that conversation.  

If you’d like to learn more about Advance Requirements Planning or if you’d like to access white papers on Supply Chain Planning, the State of Smart Manufacturing, and how to stay agile during demand planning, you can do so here.

This webinar episode was sponsored by Plex

Today’s episode is a continuation of our Women in the Workplace series. Earlier this year we talked with women from GODIVA, Hot Bread Kitchen, and the Females in Food program about how each company is helping to empower women throughout the food and beverage industry. 

Today we turn our attention to Jenn Palmer, CEO of eCapital ABL. At eCapital, Jenn leads an organization that specializes in financing food and beverage companies. At the helm since January of 2020, we talk about how Jenn’s career path helped her see the value of diversity – both among eCapital’s portfolio and within her teams. And speaking of portfolios, Jenn explains how her team helped grow eCapital’s portfolio 70%...during a pandemic.  

In this episode, we talk about the hurdles women experience when trying to launch or grow a food business, with special attention paid to women’s access – or lack thereof – to capital. We also address how to make financing more equitable as well as HOW – and WHY – both men and women can better support women-owned business. 

Read the transcript of the episode on the Food Processing website

With us on the podcast is Dr. Susan Blount, Vice President of Scientific & Regulatory Affairs for Mars Incorporated. Today we’re talking about food integrity, food fraud and adulteration and what Dr. Blount and her team are doing to ensure consumers throughout the world have safer foods. 

We kick things off talking about what food integrity is – and isn’t and what companies like Mars are doing to ensure a safe food system. We take a deeper dive into regulations across the world when it comes to the misrepresentation of food and how that plays into the global supply chain. We also address issues pertaining to consumer trust and how Mars is working with its partners for more consistent harmonization as well as the technologies that are available to detect fraudulent foods. We cap things off talking about the Mars Global Food Safety Center and as well as whether better detection methods or more regulations are more important when it comes to food fraud. 

Enjoy the episode. 

Read the transcript of this episode on the Food Processing website

A review of thousands of compressed air systems has reveal that, on average, users operate below 50% of system capacity. And, in fact, oversized compressors are among the most common problems in air systems.

Here to talk amore about that on the podcast today are Kaeser Compressors’ Wayne Perry and Neil Mehltretter. They’ll address why oversizing occurs and how an oversized system reduces reliability and increases maintenance and lifecycle costs.

Read the transcript on the Food Processing website.

This episode is sponsored by Kaeser Compressors

Is your pest control program as effective as you’d like it to be? In this episode, we talked with Sharon Dobesh, Director Of Technical Services, and Pamela Peckman, staff entomologist, both of Industrial Fumigant Company, about pest prevention strategies you can enact at your facility as well as what the future holds in pest management.

We talk about the best way to design an integrated pest management program that focuses on prevention, how sanitation works into pest control and an IPM program, as well why and how data plays such an important role in developing an IPM program. 

Read the full transcript on the Food Processing website

This episode is sponsored by IFC

When it comes to digital transformation initiatives, have you ever wondered what the top food and beverage companies are doing? Here to help answer that question is Eric Campagna, Food & CPG Machine Health Lead for Augury. Join us as we talk about what’s working – and not working – for the top food and beverage processors as well as the importance of taking risks, particularly when it comes to digital transformation.

We talk about which digital transformation initiatives could provide the most impact as well as how manufacturers can address their current business challenges with new technologies.  

We wrap things up talking about machine health and how it can increase food and beverage manufacturer’s competitive advantage. 

Read the Transcript on the Food Processing website

Learn more about how Augury helps the food and beverage industry. Visit their website

This episode was sponsored by Augury

With us on the podcast today is Steven Burton, Founder and CEO of Icicle Technologies. Originally launched to help solve the problem of foodborne illness, Icicle now helps food companies execute their food safety plans.

In this episode, we get to the meat of the matter of lab-grown meat. We kick things off talking about why the notion of lab-grown meat and alternative proteins are growing in popularity as well as their impact on the meat industry.

We talk a bit about consumers’ perspectives of meat alternatives and the GMO-ification of it all before digging in to a discussion about both the advantages and drawbacks of lab-grown meat. We of course also talk about how safe lab-grown meat really is. We wrap things up talking about how Icicle Technologies is helping companies – including those in the lab-grown meat space – bring safer products to market.

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2022 Digital Food & Beverage Conference: Special Discount for Food For Thought Listeners

On today’s special episode, we’re talking with Kaeser Compressors about ISO Class 0 Compressed Air.  Join us as we talk with Neil Mehltretter, Technical Director, and Werner Rauer, Product Manager, about what Class 0 Compressed air really is. 

We talk about what a Class 0 label really means as well as what guidelines and specifications there are for class zero air in food and beverage applications. We wrap things up talking about whether there are energy or other cost implications for higher levels of air quality. 

Read the transcript on the Food Processing website.

This episode is sponsored by Kaeser Compressors

Are you feeling OK about the MRP in your ERP? If you’re feeling unsure, then listen in to this informative conversation we had with Plex Systems’ Ara Surenian about material requirements planning, especially as it relates to enterprise resource planning.

We kick things off talking about how supply chain planning can help with inventory lots as well as with labor issues. We then segue over to a discussion about risk management and wrap things up talking about what’s going on with the current packaging and material shortages and how Plex can help food and beverage processors plan for all of it. 

Read the transcript of this episode on the Food Processing website

Learn More About our Sponsor: Plex Systems at Plex.com

Enjoy the episode. 

In this special bonus episode, we recently talked with Randy Smith, CEO and Founder of Vicinity Software about the supply chain and analytics and how the VicinityFood ERP system can help processors with predictive ordering and availability of ingredients.

We talk about a lot of topics that are important to food and beverage processors right now, such as reviewing vendor performance, understanding how changes in inventory costs will affect production, as well as what tracking and traceability information processors will need to have in place in the event of a recall.

Learn more about this episode's sponsor, Vicinity Food

Read the transcript of this episode