George Fischer Piping Systems has launched what it claims is the world's first real-time, on-line calculation tool for cooling/refrigeration piping systems at http://www.cool-fit.georgfischer.com.

Star Technical Solutions (STS) has been launched by Star Refrigeration as the company's technical advisory arm for customers wanting assistance on a wide range of refrigeration engineering issues.

Freezelite is the latest development in Heinen Freezing's range of compact fluidised bed freezers for the cooling and freezing of bulk flow products.

Roach Foods, based in Bodmin, Cornwall and part of the Tulip Group, which supplies cooked bacon products to foodservice and retail outlets across the UK, has boosted throughput and made big cost savings by investing in four energy efficient in-line chillers from Starfrost to replace an ageing nitrogen tunnel system.

The United Kingdom Industrial Vision Association (UKIVA) has broadened its remit to include companies which deal with imaging techniques other than the traditional visible light/camera combinations. "This is in recognition of the fact that other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as infrared and X-rays, now are being applied to industrial vision tasks," says UKIVA's Jennie Harris.

The MET 30+ hf range of metal detectors has been designed by Lock Inspection Systems primarily for use in the snack food and bakery industries. It is claimed that it offers up to 35% higher sensitivity than standard detectors.

A metal detector fitted on an automatic bagging line is helping Thorntons to scan a variety of different shapes of bags of chocolates.

Traditional single-frequency metal detectors require internal adjustments when faced with handling a product that is different from others inspected on a production line. Usually, this means that an engineer has to be called to retune the detector's frequency, which can take several hours and delay production.

Metal detection systems designed specifically for sausage production lines are now available, thanks to a partnership between inspection specialist Loma Systems and meat processing equipment supplier Vemag.

Sartorius has developed the SartoSure software package for use in pack houses, ready meal production plants, portion control applications, and other environments in which manual checkweighing is carried out.

Two new weighing machines, developed specifically for food industry applications, have been launched by Mettler-Toledo.

Food processors and packers can identify via markings on individual pack labels those foods that are relatively high or low in fat, salt and sugar with an automated weigh price labelling machine from Herbert Industrial.

The new R series of multi-head weighers, launched by Ishida Europe, offers speeds of up to 200 weighs/minute on a 14-head single-discharge machine.

Enhancements to Avery Weigh-Tronix's M series of scales will enable retailers to comply with the new European Union (EU) regulations on food safety, labelling, and traceability, says Peter Williams, head of retail marketing at the company.

The BW128W 28-head weigher, introduced by Bilwinco, has been designed for use in the wet food industry. It is said to meet the demand for complex and flexible integration between weigher and horizontal packaging machines, such as thermoforming equipment and tray sealers.

Barron McCann has developed the Factory Production Terminal (FPT) series of waterproof and dustproof integrated, touch-screen, industrial PCs for processing environments.

Monkhill Confectionery, a division of Cadbury Trebor Bassett, has purchased a package coding management system for the accurate control of on-pack coding at its two sites.

Communication has been raised to a new level by the Polarvision system designed for food processing operations, claims Mark Bishop, director of Interfood Technology. "It is a software package that provides the user with full production accountability -- specifically, optimum control and monitoring of brine preparation, injecting, and massaging."

A significant percentage of flowmeters are measuring incorrectly in the food industry due to changes in consistency or throughput of ingredients, contamination or corrosion, claims Chris Ringer, UK sales manager at Krohne. Now, a new generation of electromagnetic flowmeters or 'magmeters' provides processors with accurate and comprehensive diagnostic information, thus improving reliability and measurement repeatability.

Downtime has been cut and productivity maximised by the introduction of a new support service from Rockwell Automation that connects directly to process systems installed.

Coding information on bread wrappers is recorded on the plastic tape or clip which is used to fasten the bag. However, when the bag is opened the tape or clip, along with the coding, is discarded. Recently, bakeries have been asked by supermarkets to meet new traceability requirements and code information on to packaging.

A gas flushing, semi-automatic, hand-turned, rotary table heat-sealing machine has been installed by Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses at its facility in Preston, Lancashire. It is being used to seal pots of cheese which are supplied to Asda.

Ilapak has designed and built an automated sachet line for tea-packing company, Premier Foods.

A machine which produces sealed vacuum display packs of meat, fish, or cheese, with the product held firmly on a rigid base, has been introduced by Ulma Packaging.

Videojet Technologies has acquired a number of marking and coding brands to strengthen its product offering and develop its technological expertise, says European marketing manager Xavier Chaveton.

Three new fully automated, high-speed flow-wrapping, robotic cartoning, and shrink-wrapping machines have been developed by Bradman-Lake.

AEW Delford Systems has extended the range of its labelling products with the launch of the Concept A500 air blast laser applicator. Said to be ideal for food and non-food secondary labelling applications, the A500 offers multi-directional flexibility making it capable of applying labels in any direction on to a pack, regardless of how the labels are positioned on a reel.

McVitie's has invested £7.2m in a new site in Carlisle which is being used for the production of its Ginger Nut and other biscuits. As part of this move the decision was taken -- initiated by packaging supplier Sigpack Systems -- to change from the traditional roll wrap to a flow wrap system.

Recent developments from BCH include a range of specialist cookers which offer a tilting action for easy product discharge following steam cooking and vacuum cooling. The cookers are suitable for use with rice, noodles, and pasta as well as with vegetables and sauces.

Haigh's Farm Shop, based in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, is open seven days a week supplying meat, sausage, bacon, poultry, bread, and confectionery. In addition, pies are cooked in a Tom Chandley five-deck oven which has been in operation on the premises for nearly 20 years.

Four carbon medium wavelength infrared heating systems from Heraeus Noblelight are helping sub-contract filled chocolate bar and egg manufacturer Magna Speciality Confectioners to achieve better control over the quality of its filled products.

Cooking sausages to look like they've been prepared in the frying pan at home is something that Double D Food Engineering knows all about.

John Cosgrove, general manager of Eurobake, believes that accurate and reliable controlled dough conservation and proving offers bakers perfect dough. He also claims it releases bakery personnel from some of the industry's traditional anti-social working hours, as fermented materials can be retarded and stored overnight or up to 72h.

To satisfy demand for new shapes and improved colour definition in snacks and cereals, new extrusion technology has been introduced.

A high-capacity twinscrew extrusion system has been developed by Buhler in collaboration with some of its customers. ECOtwin is claimed to offer flexibility combined with good product quality and lower production costs.

The ScanPortioner 36 portion cutter, from Scanvaegt, uses a servo knife motor and a fast-operating vision system to offer users in the fish industry between 600 and 800 strokes a minute.

As the sole distributor in the UK and Ireland, Interfood Technology supplies the German-made Weber range of slicing machines to a variety of users in the food industry.

The Stressa range of meat slicers, now available from Apuro, offers three standard models (blade sizes of 8in, 10in, and 12in) and two heavy-duty models (blade sizes of 10in and 12in), which are designed to handle a range of applications.

Hosokawa Micron has delivered a 100,000-litre stainless steel powder homogeniser to a company in Holland for use in the blending of flour, salt, milk powder, and additives used in bakery pre-mix.

One of the latest improvements at the Silver Spring Soft Drinks' site in Folkestone, Kent has been in the company's syrup production processing area. Here, a powder/liquid mixing system, designed by Silverson Machines, has been installed for dispersing and hydrating ingredients.

Spooner Vicars has introduced a new range within its Pro series of high-speed mixers, which have several new features. These include a redesigned bowl tilt geometry, inverter drive and soft start options for the main beater drive, a range of control options and a 24% smaller machine footprint.

A Lindor drum mixer weighing a massive 20t with 25,000l useful product volume produced for a company that makes high-grade gelatine additives for the food industry is the largest one of its type ever built. It nearly doubles the previous design limit for these 'gentle touch' mixers, available in the UK from Orthos.

An investment in excess of £150,000 has seen the installation of an 11m-high sugar silo at Chequer Foods in Telford.

The latest development from Geppert-Band is a stainless steel flat belt conveyor which has been designed for use in limited spaces.

Increased output and user flexibility are key benefits of two fully automatic 'bag-in-box' filling machines installed in the Leeds factory of Britvic Soft Drinks.

The MAG PixCell machine vision system is a materials handling and packaging machine concept developed for pick-and-place applications in the food industry.

An FPS pick-and-place packer has been installed by Ishida Europe at Hitchen Foods in Wigan to help to maintain speeds on a packing line.

Niro is expanding its test centre in Copenhagen and when complete it will be one of the largest of its type in Europe, with over 35 different pilot plants available for customers' use.

The FMG range of bulk butter packing lines from APV has been developed for carton-filling applications in the dairy industry.

Spare parts and specialist coatings for equipment used in the dairy industry are offered as a result of a new agreement between Moody Direct and the German company, RS Rittel.

Tetra Pak Processing has supplied a wide range of equipment to the new Dairy Crest plant in Davidstow, Cornwall, at which Cathedral City cheese is produced.

A continuously operating horizontal decanter centrifuge, said to offer optimum dewatering in confined spaces up to a capacity of 3,000l/h, has been developed by Westfalia Separator for the food, beverage, and chemical industries.

A self-cleaning beer clarifier has been developed which is said to offer economy of operation, producing higher concentrations of solid phase, while being gentle with the product.

Lenticular and sheet filters have been added to Domnick Hunter's range of beverage micro-filtration products. "They are suitable for primary clarification, polishing, and microbial reduction in food and beverage applications, and a wide range of process liquids and applications is covered," says product manager Peter Riddell.

Maintenance and repair of equipment is now being offered by Centriquip, which claims to be the largest manufacturer of decanter centrifuges in the UK.

A range of miniature pumping systems and solutions developed for applications in the food and beverage industries is available from Micropump.

Ensuring a full, uninterrupted flow in process lines, especially where powders and granular materials are being handled, can be difficult. One way to eliminate the problem is to specify pinch valves.

BestPump has commissioned an automated butter block handling system at Fox's Biscuits in Batley, West Yorkshire.

Fluid handling specialist Pursuit Dynamics has signed its third UK distribution agreement with T Musk Engineering.

It began life in the in 1930s with the use of carbon dioxide to store beef and lamb carcasses shipped to the UK from Australia and New Zealand. Yet the use of modified atmosphere packaging, or MAP, is still growing. And packaging firms and gas suppliers still innovate with new developments in packaging machinery and experiments with new gases and gas mixtures.