(Photo: Tetra Pak)
Tetra Pak, the world’s leading food processing and packaging solutions company, unveiled technology solutions during Hannover Messe 2019 in Germany aimed at revolutionizing the food and beverage industry in the era of Industry 4.0.
The solutions will pave the way for smarter factories while reducing the environmental impact and allowing product packaging to become an interactive information channel for producers, retailers and shoppers.
Smart solutions offered by Tetra Pak include “Factory of the future”, a connected packaging platform, and an energy assessment program.
“Factory of the future” promises to bring a revolution in the way food manufacturing plants operate. Machines will be able to communicate with each other as well as with the digital systems of the entire operation, automatically tackling tasks in diagnosing problems, ordering and delivering parts, and seeking an engineer most suitable for the service needed.
“We are in a period where the market is changing at high speed,” said Mr. Johan Nilsson, Vice President Industry 4.0 and Digitalization at Tetra Pak. “Consumer demands coupled with regulations require a new way of food manufacturing that is much more efficient and food-safety guaranteed.”
Its connected packaging platform, meanwhile, transforms milk and juice cartons into interactive information channels, full-scale data carriers, and digital tools.
Driven by the trends behind Industry 4.0 and with code generation, digital printing, and data management at its core, the platform will provide new benefits to food producers, retailers, and shoppers.
Tetra Pak also announced it is developing an energy assessment program in cooperation with ABB to help food and beverage producers lower their environmental impact and cut costs. The program provides an assessment of the entire plant, helping customers minimize their environmental impact and maximize profitability.
Based on this analysis, Tetra Pak provides recommendations for food producers on opportunities to reduce energy consumption and help them make informed decisions about how resources are used in their plants. Based on pilot projects in the Americas, the program can potentially reduce carbon emissions in food and beverage manufacturing and cut energy cost by between 15 and 25 per cent.
“There is a sense of urgency among all industries to reduce their environmental impact across their operations, and we are developing programs together with our partners to reduce this impact for our customers and the overall industry,” said Mr. Nilsson. “The plant assessment program is an excellent example of an area where we have found and created opportunities for environmental savings.”
Tetra Pak has been working on the digitalization of food manufacturing with partners including Microsoft, ABB, and SAP and automated logistics solutions provider Elettric80. Combining cutting-edge technologies with the company’s food expertise, its ultimate goal is to lead the digital transformation of food manufacturing and offer greater support to its customers in the digital era.
A global company, Tetra Pak is one of the leaders in processing and packaging solutions for the liquid food industry. It supplies packaging material, filling machines, processing equipment, and solutions, with the highest commitment to quality. In Vietnam, Tetra Pak was set up in 1994 with a head office in Ho Chi Minh City and a branch office in Hanoi. The company has grown dramatically over the last several years, from four to 350 employees today.
Tetra Pak Vietnam visions to “make food safe and available everywhere” and support sustainability through technical support for the nationwide program of Milk at School; enhancing capacity for recylers and expanding the collection network for used-packages in Vietnam. The company invests 110 million euro in a new plant in Binh Duong to catering to the increasing demand of domestic and regional market.
