Commercial Links

25-Jun-2006 - Last updated on 12-Apr-2010 at 10:22 GMT

Firms are often not showing the commitment needed in order to see R&D projects through to fruition, as John Dunn discovers

Europe's food and drink industry got its begging bowl out last month. It took it to Brussels in a bid to double the amount of EU taxpayers' money spent on food and drink research and development (R&D).

In its first competitive benchmarking report on Europe's food and drink industry, published in June, the industry's European trade body, the CIAA, called for 11% of the EU's research budget to be devoted to the food industry instead of the current 5.5%.

The EU's food industry spends just 0.32% of its output on R&D. That's less than the US and under half of what Norway and Japan spend, said the CIAA. "Overall profitability has not been maintained at a sufficient level throughout the food and drink sector to keep and expand investment, notably in R&D."

But the CIAA's begging-bowl approach ignores the question of just how much use food companies actually make of government funded R&D projects. If you are spending your own profits on research, then you are likely to stick with it to make damn sure you get value from it. But if it's a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) funded project, or an EU programme, then it becomes a lot easier to throw in the towel when the results don't go the way you expected, or the process needs a lot more development than you first thought.

According to Dr Christina Goodacre, many food companies do tend to expect the results of government-backed research to be handed to them on a plate. Consequently they lack the stamina to stick with a project when it gets a bit difficult or takes longer than expected.

Goodacre is programme manager for FoodLINK, the series of UK collaborative industry-academia food industry research projects, which are up to 50% funded by the government, usually via DEFRA.

"We have seen it many times," says Goodacre. "Initially there is great enthusiasm from food companies in a LINK project. But then later, as the work all looks more difficult than first met the eye, or perhaps where the project's champion in the company has left, interest starts to wither."

The FoodLINK programme is split into two. The Advanced Food Manufacturing LINK programme has supported 81 collaborative research projects worth £24M over the past 10 years. The newer Food Quality and Innovation LINK programme has a portfolio of 25 projects going back five years worth £13.5M.

Projects can vary from the very large (£1.5M on new technologies and chemistries for food can coatings) to the modest (£53,000 on investigating a double-layer fabric composite for localised food cooling), and they last from a few months to three years.

Each of the two programmes has its own management committee to advise on the scientific, technical and industrial relevance of a proposed project. Both committees include representatives from some of the big names in the food industry - Northern Foods, Unilever, Greencore, Weetabix, Marks & Spencer. Which makes it rather surprising that many projects seem to fail to make it to the market place, destined to remain on the shelf of some university lab.

Part of the problem, says Goodacre, is that there is often a development gap between completing the research and commercialising the results, particularly for a project involving a specific piece of equipment. And the short pay-back periods of two years or less that are common in the food industry don't help either, she adds.

Equipment manufacturers involved in a project will gauge just how much of a market there might be for a particular process or piece of equipment. "Only if they can see a real commitment by the end-users are they likely to invest in the further development of a piece of kit," claims Gooadacre.

Lack of 'stickability'

Obviously there are projects that don't turn out as expected or are not really commercially viable, she says. "Research is research and not everything is viable. But there is not enough will among companies to stick with those projects where there really could be a commercial payback."

Another problem is that many firms are under so much pressure to get product out of the door that they are either unwilling or unable to find the time to allow researchers to demonstrate the results of their work in the factory.

"We find companies often do not have time or the spare capacity to trial things," says Goodacre. "We had a project on the automation of sandwich-making using clever conveyor belt technology. But when it came to doing a demonstration, the company involved told the researchers they could only have a couple of hours. That wasn't long enough to demonstrate the equipment properly."

But it isn't all doom and gloom. Far from it, says Goodacre. There have been many successes. In particular she cites an earlier LINK project involving Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association (CCFRA) in the development of time-temperature integrators for the pasteurisation and sterilisation of foods. These small silicone capsules contain enzymes which denature during a heating cycle. By analysing the enzymes afterwards, it can easily be seen whether the food has been heated to the right temperature for long enough to kill off the harmful micro-organisms.

The work was so successful that CCFRA won the National Measurement Awards in 2004 and the indicators are now in extensive use in the food industry, says Goodacre.

So what sort of good, useful government-funded research is lying around waiting for an enterprising food company to take up?

It's not quite that simple, says Goodacre. "Research isn't really sitting ready on the shelf waiting for you to go out and buy. But let us just say that there are many LINK projects where not enough value has been extracted yet."

These include ice-pigging where crushed ice is pumped through processing lines between batches to recover valuable unused product. Another is that conveyor for assembling sandwiches. And a lot of work has been done on the localised cooling of foods in chilled food plants.

Other under-exploited LINK work includes: research into the control of thermal processes to avoid over-processing; barrier tunnels that would allow products to be taken from low care to high care areas; and work on the use of cans of aerosol cleaning fluids - how far do the drops fly in a food factory?

There has been research on the prediction of food quality by gathering data on the process variables rather than waiting for the results of sample testing. The use of 'process analytics' (borrowed from the chemical industry) allows you to predict the quality of your product in real-time, says Goodacre. And other LINK projects have looked at the automatic erection and folding of complicated cardboard packaging and the so-called 'factory in a pipe' where some food processes with health and safety issue are undertaken by robots in a 'pipe' isolated from the rest of the production line.

"I can see that if I were working in industry, I might think that getting involved in a LINK project was all too much effort," admits Goodacre. "But anyone who has a technical issue they want some help with has only to contact us. We can provide people at the interface of business and academia who can tease out what it is you really want and then put you in touch with the right people or help create a project round your idea. Just ring us up and we'll get someone to come and talk to you."

And it's the same message from Professor Bronek Wedzicha in the Procter Department of Food Science at Leeds University. Wedzicha heads up the Food Chain Centre of Industrial Collaboration at Leeds. This was set up by Yorkshire Forward, the regional development authority, to encourage the region's large food manufacturing industry to make more use of local university R&D.

There may not be research on the lab shelves just waiting to be picked up by food companies, says Wedzicha, but universities are full of ideas that could prove useful to companies. "Our IP [intellectual property] is latent. It sits around in our heads, in our books, on our desks. Some of it isn't immediately applicable. But it can be unlocked at any time by the right catalyst - by a phone call from someone wanting help. That's how research works.

"There are inventions sitting around waiting for people to unlock them with the magic key. And the magic key is: Talk to us - you might just be surprised at what we've got." FM

Details and contacts for all FoodLINK projects can found on the Food LINK website: http://www.foodlink.org.uk.