It's been a busy three years since food and drink sector skills council Improve was born, but the organisation has reached a milestone.

The second edition of Product development guide (Guideline No. 8) aims to aid food and drink companies on their quest to successfully develop and market new products.

Functional and health-enhancing juices: 7 key trends is the latest report from New Nutrition Business.

The fourth edition of Sensory evaluation techniques illustrates up-to-the-minute developments in sensory testing.

Microbiological safety of foods is of principal concern to the food industry and having a better understanding of the toxins produced; growth and survival characteristics of organisms; and fundamental control measures is vital.

Bell Bakers, supplier of supermarket pies, pastry and cakes, has invested in automated batch process control systems at its modern, bespoke bakery in Shotts, North Lanarkshire.

Gem Pack Foods in Dublin is well pleased with the performance of its Spiroflow Big Bag discharger supplied by Powder Process Systems.

Thermometers inside refrigeration cabinets are supposed to check that the cabinets are operating at the correct temperature to stop bacteria in food from multiplying.

The First Milk Cheese Company has cut fuel consumption by 7.5% on its three heavy-oil fired steam-raising boilers at its Haverfordwest creamery, thanks to the installation of Maxsys Fuel+ energy saving systems. The return-on-investment was less than a year.

Grampian Country Food Group has installed two custom-built spiral freezers from Starfrost for its chicken processing plant in Thailand.

Pump maker Netzsch has developed the M-Ovas macerator/grinder machine for industries where solids in a liquid can interfere with processes and create potential safety risks.

The Turcon Variseal Ultra-Clean is a spring tensioned polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) seal from Trelleborg Sealing Solutions that offers the ultimate in cleanliness. The fully-enclosed spring design eliminates dead space within the seal and the risk of contamination.

Rocol Lubricants has unveiled a thermal imaging service to add to its Rocolcare machinery lubricants and maintenance package.

Distributor Kaylu is making natural organic sweetener Agave Nectar available in the UK in bulk sizes.

Ingredients firm Wild has launched a clear fruit juice concept called Refresher using Fruit Up, a natural fruit sweetener with a low glycaemic index.

Trials, conducted for Nutrinova by Lintech RSSL, show that sweetener blends can be used to totally or partially replace sugar and therefore reduce calorie levels while maintaining flavour.

Chocolate and cocoa product manufacturer Barry Callebaut has received the 'Happy Tooth' endorsement from dental experts at he Toothfriendly International organisation for its new non-laxative chocolate.

While the UK has the largest sales volume in Europe for low calorie carbonates - over a third of UK carbonates are low calorie, and over 60% of all UK soft drinks are either low calorie or no added sugar - our acceptance of sweeteners does not extend to the candy market.

A stainless-steel magnetic mixer/motor package for the food industries has been introduced by Advanced Engineering. The mixer is magnetically coupled to the motor so there is no mechanical seal, making the mixer leak free.

A rotary continuous mixer from New York based Munson Machinery blends ingredients in ratios down to one part per million, regardless of bulk densities, particle sizes or the flow characteristics of ingredients. Capacity of the 16-4SS mixer ranges from 2.45m³/h at 1 minute residence time, to 1.19m³/h at 2 minutes residence time.

A Lindor L1500 mixer has helped French breakfast cereals company Favrichon to meet high throughput needs with flexibility. It will produce a mix of ingredients of varied densities and grain sizes in three minutes or less when used at just 10% capacity. The mixer is also guaranteeing energy savings of up to 97%.

VMI has launched the first spiral dough mixer equipped with a triple-jacketed rotary bowl cooled by circulating glycol water. Known as the Frostmix, it incorporates VMI's exclusive cooling system. It can keep dough between 16°C and 20°C during mixing - some 7°C to 10°C cooler than if a coolant wasn't being used. It is ideal for puff pastry, croissants, pizza dough and bread doughs for partly-baked production.

From nuclear reactors to jet propulsion for boats, the food industry is capable of coming up with some remarkably advanced technology for mixing and blending its products. But for the majority of firms, mixing and blending technology has changed little over the years, and it is all the better for that. Except for the fish eyes.

Food and drink businesses are increasingly looking to outsource legal expertise in order to deal with employment issues such as maternity leave or career breaks, according to Vertex Law.

Antitrust issues are increasingly a facet of investment decisions in the food and drink industry, not only for trade buyers, but also for private equity firms.

Brazil's poultry exporters are out to prove their standards of hygiene, animal welfare and environmental credentials equal the world's best. They feel unfairly slated for inhumane factory farming methods and destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Oh, and they ain't too happy about what they see as EU trade barriers.

Biosensors are being heralded as the brave new world for food processing control technology. While the murkier defence sector has so far taken advantage of what biosensors have to offer in fields such as nerve gas, bacteria and virus detection, a whole raft of manufacturing applications are also in prospect.

Addvent has introduced a range of Avik electric insect killers developed to meet the stringent requirements of the food industry.

A compact bench-top amino-acid analyser capable of rapidly analysing complex amino-acid mixtures in food and feedstuffs is available from Biochrom.

Unreadable, smudged or faded labels can be a problem for laboratory data trails. Now thermal transfer print technology labelling from Brady Corporation offers a solution to these problems.

The TMS-Console from Food Technology Corporation is a console-controlled force measurement system for testing the characteristics of food products.

No matter how many times you do it, the simple task of putting on hygienic shoe covers never seems easy.

A fast culture method for the improved isolation, differentiation and identification of Salmonella species in foods has been introduced by Oxoid. Its Salmonella Rapid Culture Method has been developed to provide colonies in just 42h, up to two days earlier than by traditional culture methods.

A range of bug-killing levelling feet for food machinery conveyors has been developed by Arnott Handling Equipment. The blue coloured feet incorporate the anti-bacterial additive Hygienilac.

Stable Micro Systems has launched an instrument to measure the tensile strength and extensibility of pasta. The Noodle/Pasta Loop Tensile Rig, which attaches to the TA.XTPlus texture analyser helps manufacturers test the resilience and consumer appeal of cooked sheet pasta and noodles.

The number of people suffering from allergies has trebled in the last 20 years. Each year over 6,000 people in England alone are admitted to hospital with allergic reactions and a quarter of those are suffering from life-threatening breathing difficulties, or anaphylaxis. So it's little wonder that allergies are big news, with talk of an epidemic.

As the old joke goes, the only thing worse than finding a beetle in your sandwich is finding half a beetle - where did the other half go?

At 20 years of age, Reading Scientific Services (RSSL) may not quite have the key to the door, but it's got the key to pretty much everything else. The group has moved a long way from its roots in shelf-life testing to prevent microbe spoilage. Now claims substantiation is its focal point and it invests vast amounts of time testing functional ingredients to make sure they're all they're cracked up to be.

The first casualty of the D-Day landings was said to be a British soldier whose self-heating can of tomato soup exploded when he tried to light the cordite stick. These days, a squaddie dodging snipers in Helmand Province is more likely to have a couple of pouches of chicken tikka masala warming nicely under his armpits and a pack of thirst-quenching isotonic crystals tucked into his fatigues.

It's the inevitable question. So be prepared to answer it if you meet the md of Kellogg UK. "What did you have for breakfast?" He waits a good half hour before bringing up my culinary habits, but admits he wasn't going to let me out of his office before discovering whether I started the day with a snap, crackle and pop.

And I thought that after many years of slow but locally efficient supply chains, lean had taken over: you signed up to the fact that sending a half-empty lorry was acceptable, because it was the speed and responsiveness that won over customers.

Supermarket chain Morrison claims to have already achieved significant business and environmental benefits since starting to bring together two very different logistics systems into a single operation, following the acquisition of Safeway in March 2004.

Matt, paper-effect flexibles may look simple, and may even want to create that impression, but as recent packaging for Sainsbury demonstrates, the reality is far more complex.

Incorporation of Photo Standard information into coding management systems cuts inefficiency and ensures the image has a real quality assurance function, says technology supplier Claricom.

With projected UK mixed plastics bottle recycling capacity put at 65,000t/year by May 2008, domestic reprocessors will have significant volumes of food-grade polymer on offer. But options are divided about how this will affect pricing.

Tetra Pak says it expects at least one UK paper mill to begin recycling beverage cartons over the next few months, but a proportion of collected waste will still be shipped to mainland Europe for reprocessing.

If you are looking for a quieter life, you're not alone. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that across all industries 170,000 people are affected by hearing loss and many suffer from tinnitus - a complaint in which sufferers experience a ringing, humming or buzzing in their ears. Furthermore, industrial hearing loss accounts for 75% of all civil compensation claims.

Consumer confidence in fresh poultry could be seriously hit by a worrying number of incidents in which thawed frozen chicken meat is passed off as fresh produce, the head of the British Poultry Council (BPC) has warned.

Despite the requirements for allergen labelling coming into force three years ago, we still see regular food alerts and recalls due to lack of declaration on product labels of allergenic ingredients. In some instances the issue is a total lack of declaration, in others a mistake in information transfer to a 'contains' box.

Independent supplier of cooked ingredients Beacon Foods has launched the first in its Tastes of the World range, which will consist of concise sets of sauces, relishes and chutneys to mix and match with proteins for sandwiches and salads.

There are plenty of ways in which processors could improve their products by using malt, but unfortunately only about 30% of manufacturers know what the ingredient is, according to an ingredients expert.

Manufacturers looking to give their products an alcoholic apple kick may be interested to know that Aspall is now available for food use through Thomas Lowndes.

Unilever UK is targeting the growing savoury snacks market, with the national launch of a new healthy snacks range from Marmite.

Sainsbury's new Supernaturals range of chilled ready meals is on course to turn over £12M by the year-end, bosses have revealed.

I have just joined Slow Food Dorset but work for Oscar Mayer, a leading producer manufacturing supermarket ready meals - am I a hypocrite?

Pancake manufacturer Ming Foods is keen for customers to go beyond the realm of duck and experiment with alternative fillings.

The Cornish Sea Salt Company has launched the only British sea salt harvested straight from ocean.

Chefs aiming to up their game may want to sample Knorr's Stock Reduction from Unilever Foodsolutions.

Kepak Convenience Foods has launched deli range Ugo's Deli Café into the UK's £104M hot snacks category.

Any development chef worth his salt knows that food appreciation trips are vital if he is to find out the latest trends. And just three minutes walk from London Bridge station is a national treasure bursting with exciting foods.

Irish cheesemaker Kerrygold has started work on a new cheese packaging facility in Leek, Staffordshire, a year after announcing plans to pump £30M into its cheese plant there.

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Trying to compare supermarket chains' green policies is like trying to figure out which mobile phone package gives the best value. The differences between retailers' strategies on green issues make it difficult to choose the most environmentally friendly.

By 2011, the market for wellness foods will be dominated by mood, relaxation, energy and vitality products. However, there's also significant interest in beauty, skincare and cardiovascular health, according to the latest Food Manufacture Market Report compiled in association with RTS Resource.

A spectacular turnaround at Uniq's desserts factory in Minsterley, Shropshire, has seen the site move from an annual operating loss of £16M to break even in just two years.

City analysts have called for the resignation of Tate & Lyle chief executive Iain Ferguson after a profit warning that wiped more than £700M off the firm's market value last month.

A lack of UK onions is hitting pasty makers, according to manufacturer Proper Cornish.

An electrifying way to tackle effluent has been developed to help the food industry fulfil water recycling targets and cut its landfill waste.

European approval for novel foods takes so long that the business case for launching them has often collapsed before applicants get the green light, according to Europe's confederation of food and drink industries (CIAA).

The Food and Drink Federation said recipes used for more than £15bn worth of its members' foods had less fat, sugar and salt than in 2004. It said UK manufacturers were world leaders.

Laila's Fine Foods is forecasting a 60% increase in turnover following its move to new 3,065m2 premises on the outskirts of Blackpool. It expects to produce £10M worth of chilled as well as frozen ready meals.

Food companies can buy carbon credits from United Nations approved projects through trading company Carbon Capital Markets. Under the scheme, firms in developed countries buy Certified Emission Reductions to finance projects in developing countries that reduce emissions.

Yorkshire ingredients group Matthews has acquired family owned nuts, seeds and dried fruit specialists Quality Kernels.

Former Northern Foods chairman Lord Haskins will be the keynote speaker at the 2008 City Food Lecture in January.

A growing number of food producers expect the costs of oil, commodities and freight to continue to increase over the next three months, according to the latest quarterly CBI Industrial Trends survey. The survey showed a positive balance of 22% of food firms expecting cost rises - the biggest swing since April 1995.

Consumers will back genetic modification (GM) technology in Europe within a decade as they see how it could improve the nutritional profile of staple foods and feed the world's population, according to marketers.

French supermarket giant Carrefour has given a glimpse of its three-year strategy for blitzing on-shelf availability using a tiered information sharing network with suppliers.

Shoppers have poor understanding of carbon footprinting and assumptions do not match reality, according to research from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) due out later this month.

Human health risks have not been fully addressed by food contact materials regulations introduced last month, which have been attacked as unnecessary.

Carbon labelling is dividing manufacturers and leaving consumers confused, according to environmental consultants and retailers.

The food industry has defied doomsayers by tackling government targets for climate change head on, contrary to claims it would fail to reach them.

Trade bodies are pushing for a definitive export certification process for chilled meat and dairy products in the event of further outbreaks of foot and mouth disease (FMD).

Asda will launch an own-label 'free-from' range in January 2008 that will be underpinned by a new certification scheme for suppliers.

A Coca-Cola Enterprises' employee who changed the way CCE did business with one of UK's biggest retailers has been recognised for his groundbreaking work by industry think tank IGD.

Welsh speciality baker Siwgr a Sbeis has opened a 465m2 plant to step up production of its award-winning cakes, quiches and desserts.

Sales channel specialist Jenks has taken over sales and distribution to foodservice customers for the herb and spice giant McCormick.

British Food Fortnight supporters claimed sales of featured UK product lines increased by "hundreds of per cent" during this year's promotion with consumers hearing the Buy British message more than 300M times.

Four out of five small and medium-sized businesses were not even aware of legislation in force from this month that compels them to treat waste before it is taken to landfill. The figures emerged from a YouGov survey.

There is still "absolutely no consensus" about the criteria that should underpin the nutrient profiling system enshrined in the European Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation, according to regulatory experts.

The criteria for making reduced fat, sugar or salt claims under the European Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation are so strict that they provide no incentive for companies to reformulate products, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

The UK consumer is not as neurotic about food safety as the industry believes, according to a leading academic.

A £5M refurbishment after last year's fire at United Central Bakeries (UCB) in Bathgate has tripled production efficiency for yum yums and potato scones, and freed up more than 2,000m2 of space for new lines.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) appears unlikely to recommend a complete ban on trans-fats when it offers advice to the health secretary on their use this month.

Kellogg is aiming to significantly increase its share of the healthy snacks market with the launch of a new brand called FruitaBü.