For Werner Bauer—executive vice president of Nestlé, head of corporate technical, production and R&D—the life of food technologists has not become any easier. Say five to ten years ago, flavour, enjoyment and convenience were the most important parameters. Nowadays the playing field of technologists—whether it is R&D personnel, engineers or quality managers—has become narrower, so to speak. Due to retail competition and increasingly saturated markets, costeffective production has become a must. This not only applies to low-cost followers, such as private label producers, but also to branded good producers who are market leaders in the categories in which they operate.
AFJ: How has your company reduced production costs over the last few years?
Bauer: When it comes down to cost reduction, we have focused on decreasing down times and increasing capacity utilization rates. Down times not only lead to higher baseline costs, such as depreciation, but also to extra energy, water and maintenance costs. We have decreased down time basically by adopting a proactive attitude towards production. Instead of reacting to certain problems, such as the failure of machine parts, we have adopted models that predict these occurrences. If we can plan maintenance tasks during down time, we can avoid maintenance while the machines are needed for production. Overall, we have reduced the costs of goods sold (COGS) by ten percent over the last seven years. In 2004, our COGS was 41.6 per cent to be precise.
AFJ: Apart from the hardware aspect, modelling and so forth, you have said in a recently held speech for the GDL (German Association of Food Technologists) that the human factor has been the most important factor in cutting down production costs.
Bauer: Correct. Ultimately, personnel on the work floor should be empowered so that they are able to intervene as quickly as possible. Only companies that employ well-trained, motivated workers are able to withstand the continuing pressure on production costs. In order to make full use of their capacities, responsibilities should be placed as close as possible
to the production line. For example, a machine cannot see whether a certain product, say a biscuit, is below quality standards. If these biscuits come out in a darker shade of brown, there has to be someone to shut the machine down and look for the problem. It does not work if there are seven management layers in a factory in which such a procedure would take several decision-making steps. It simply takes too much time.
INTEGRATION OF HYGIENIC DESIGN
AFJ: Is there further room for improvement in terms of food safety in the manufacturing process in the western world? In the area of hygienic equipment and overall design, I understand still a lot can be gained to improve product safety.
Bauer: Correct. There is already an extensive range of hygienically designed equipment parts, such as pumps, valves and so forth, on the market. Unfortunately, hygienic design aspects are rarely integrated with other disciplines such as worker safety or product development. The engineering side is often seen as a separate discipline, which of course it is not. This means that in a lot of cases the “damage” has already been done; once a factory layout or a production line has been made, it is very hard to change it.
AFJ: You mentioned worker safety. How do you assess the food industry in this area?
Bauer: Compared to the chemical industry, the food industry still needs a lot of improvement. One reason for this lag in development is that the food industry does not face the same hazards that are inherent to chemical processes. Therefore food safety and product quality have been our major preoccupation. However, we have realised that a lot of the minor accidents associated with manual handling and frequent line changeovers in the food industry can also be prevented by applying measures similar to those that have proven successful in riskier industry sectors. These measures include safer equipment design, more ergonomic and efficient factory layout, and betteer trained people—both at management and factory floor level. It is also important that production and cleaning procedures are well defined and strictly followed. Sound engineering can make an important contribution, for example by making open processes increasingly closed. This also improves hygienic design and ultimately product safety.
HOT TOPIC
AFJ: In addition to cost-effective production, safe and highquality food, and worker safety, food technologists and engineers also havee to take the environment into account. Does costeffective production not conflict with stringent environmental standards?
Bauer: Not at all. First of all, companies have to comply with legislation that sets certain limits, such as for wastewater or air emissions. Secondly, many environmental improvements not only benefit nature but have also proven to be cost-efficient. For example, over the past five years we have reduced our energy consumption per tonne of product by almost 25 per cent. Given the soaring energy prices, these gains help to contain our production costs. In industrial refrigeration, Nestlé has been the leader in phasing out ozone-depleting refrigerants well ahead of regulatory requirements. These were replaced through sound and innovative engineering, by perfecting the CO2/ammonia cascade concept that dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. CO2 costs little, has a good energy efficiency and has excellent thermodynamic properties at low temperature. Furthermore, it is both inherently safe and environmentally neutral.
AFJ: Sustainability seems to have emerged as yet another issue for food and drink companies. Does this issue limit the elbow room for the industry?
Bauer: Maybe it does, but it is in the interest of the industry that their supply will be guaranteed for the future. Nestlé, together with other companies, has established the Sustainable Agricultural Initiative (SAI), which includes several European F&D companies. What we try to achieve with SAI is to develop sustainable agricultural practices. Another hot topic is the implementation of ethical trading into sourcing policies. Admittedly, the F&D industry has been rather late in tackling this issue, compared to, for example, the clothing business. For now, there are ample challenges in making it work, as global supply chains have become increasingly complex and therefore are hard to control.
Source: Nestlé
Food Engineering & Ingredients, a sister publication of AFJ.
| CLASSIC EXAMPLE For Bauer, a classic example of combining energy conservation with efficient waste management is Nestlé’s incineration process for spent coffee grounds. Rather than simply dumping this by-product of coffee manufacturing, the company uses its calorific value to generate a significant part of the thermal energy required to operate its coffee factories. ‘Another example is the optimisation of our spray-drying technology to ensure that the maximum amount of water is evaporated upstream of our spray-dryers, as evaporating 1 kg of water in a conventional drying installation requires up to ten times more energy than in a pre-concentration process.’ |
