Entries for this year's New Zealand Food Awards are up 62 per cent on last year.
Entries for this year’s New Zealand Food Awards have now closed, with a record number of entries for new products vying to be the best of the best in New Zealand’s food and beverage industry.
Massey University Vice-Chancellor Steve Maharey says the response from the food and beverage industry has been incredibly positive. “Product entries are up by 62 per cent compared to last year, reflecting the growing gravitas of the awards and the value the recognition brings to award winners.”
A broad range of entrants, including niche operators, large-scale food and beverage manufacturers, primary food producers, food service providers and ingredient supply companies, will compete to take out the top spot in a number of award categories. The categories for this year’s competition have been refreshed and include the new Food Safety Culture Award, which has proven popular with entrants, the Artisan Award and the Export Innovation Award, as well as the ultimate accolade of the Massey University Supreme Award.
Mr Maharey is thrilled with the response and says it reflects the growth and excellence of New Zealand’s food and beverage industry.
“It’s fantastic to see so many New Zealand businesses getting involved in this year’s New Zealand Food Awards,” Mr Maharey says. “This competition is all about providing a forum for helping local food and beverage producers to showcase the success and innovation of their products and businesses.”.
“The awards enable companies to boost their profile and achieve recognition for their brands and businesses. We look forward to seeing the results and wish the entrants all the best as judging commences,” Mr Maharey says.
Owned and organised by Massey University, the New Zealand Food Awards recognise innovation and excellence by our largest export sector. The annual programme, which has been running since 1987, celebrates new initiatives in New Zealand food and beverage production, showcasing the best of New Zealand’s food industry.Judging about to get underway
Judging begins on August 9 whereby entrants put forward their products to an expert judging panel consisting of Jo Elwin, Ray McVinnie, Jeff Scott and Nici Wickes, receive feedback, and benchmark themselves against industry peers, which provides valuable insights for future development and approaches.
The finalists will be announced on September 1 and will then go on to compete for award titles. Winners will be announced at a gala dinner at the Auckland Museum, MC’d by broadcaster and food critic Jesse Mulligan, on October 13.
Winning products are eligible to use the New Zealand Food Awards “Quality Mark”, which highlights the superiority of their products to both consumers and industry, and can help boost sales and distribution domestically and internationally.
The New Zealand Food Awards is made possible thanks to Massey University and the family of strategic and supporting partners - Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development, Countdown, FoodHQ, The Foodbowl, The New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology, Ministry for Primary Industries, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, NZME, Review Publishing, XPO Exhibitions and Villa Maria.
For key dates and more information, please visit www.foodawards.co.nz.
In New Zealand those in the aquaculture industry play a vital role in protecting and developing a valuable food source. Tony Rumbold, principal of SCANZ Technologies, is one of these people and supports the work of the TED organisation in it's efforts to spread information on the challenges that the world faces.
TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.
The subject of this particular talk is "The Case For Fish Farming"
We're headed towards a global food crisis: Nearly 3 billion people depend on the ocean for food, and at our current rate we already take more fish from the ocean than it can naturally replace.
In this fact-packed, eye-opening talk, entrepreneur and conservationist Mike Velings proposes a solution: Aquaculture, or fish farming.
"We must start using the ocean as farmers instead of hunters," he says, echoing Jacques Cousteau. "The day will come where people will demand farmed fish on their plates that's farmed well and farmed healthy — and refuse anything less."
Why you should listen to Mike Velings a man who understands the potential for business to create durable solutions to complex world problems.
Mike Velings is the co-founder and the driving force behind Aqua-Spark, a global investment fund for sustainable aquaculture, combining a healthy financial profit with environmental and social impact. A lifelong entrepreneur, Mike has spent decades jumpstarting a range of successful businesses. Among other ventures, he co-founded Connexie, which has helped catalyze a professional employment industry across the Netherlands.
Mike naturally combines his business background with environmental and social engagement. He understands the potential for business to create durable solutions to complex world problems. With this in mind, Mike founded Aqua-Spark, an investment company that assists entrepreneurs across the globe in realizing their visions of a startup with a world-changing element. Through Aqua-Spark he has invested in a broad range of ventures over the years — both in the developed and developing world.
Mike serves on several boards and is a member of the Conservation International’s Leadership Council as well as an Honorary Global Marine Fellow.
Here in New Zealand Tony Rumbold is a person who has considerable knowledge of the Aqualculture industry. It is his passion so should there be any points that arise from this talk then he is an ideal person to have a chat with. His phone number is 09 520 2544 and email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
A few decades ago the world’s largest dairy powder company decided to up their game.
They realised that off line testing of moisture, fat (replacer oil for infant formula) and protein was costly and inefficient. So together with NDC, they came up with a dairy gauge that could measure to reference accuracy and actively control their fluid bed driers.
Over the years these gauges have evolved and improved but remain standard fittings on their fluid beds. They control all their powder so production is kept at the top of the yield and problems are quickly identified and rectified.
They budget for, and get a fast return on investment. They keep telling us that these NDC gauges are “ a licence to print money” such are the improved yields, energy and staff savings.
So now a lot of the world’s largest dairy companies have fitted these gauges and enjoyed the same results.
Now with dairy powder prices running as they are, maybe it is time for dairy producers who don’t actively control their production to up their game and “print some money”. All the hard work has been done and the gauges are guaranteed.
We can even organise a lease to buy where the savings can be more than the costs. Google www.ndc.com or call Simon Ganley of Ganley Engineering Ltd on 09 42 83426. Simon's email address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Another in the Simon Ganley series for manufacturers in the food industry
We have in New Zealand a problem that can strike small packaging companies. Where they can be running several blown film lines and just not have the money to put a gauge on each line. But they still need to see what they are making, especially when expensive co-extrusions are being made. Between a rock and a hard place stuff really!
Now NDC Technologies make a transmission gauge for measuring various co-extrusions on-line to reference accuracy. These gauges usually sit on scanning frames and control the films as they are being made. Now the problem with a lot of blown film lines is doubling the measurement at the lay flat or paying a fortune for a rotary scanner on the bubble. But a customer wanted to measure all his lines with one gauge at-line rather than on-line.
So I saw David Aucamp at Innopak in Auckland to design and make a mechanism that would scan a strip of sample. An operator simply cuts a strip from the film and puts it on the winder. This scans the strip and gives a full running analysis of the co-extrusions. This data is kept as a record and the operator can adjust the die bolts to correct any unders or overs. One centrally placed winding system is far less to buy than a gauge system on each line. Innopak make the scanning frame. This gauge system works brilliantly and is now well proven
If you are a blown film packaging manufacturer this level of control opens things out significantly for you because you can now confidently make products that previously you would probably never have attempted. You can set the lines up to make products automatically the way your customers customers want them. And that gives you a quick return on investment. The ability to control what you make is paramount and really does have a positive effect on the bottom line.
If the above applies to you then please don’t hesitate to come through to me. You can reach me on 09 428 3426 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and the other part of the solution; I do have finance options available for you to consider that can help make the whole exercise a positive one.
From Simon Ganley of Ganley Engineering
High Pressure Processing (HPP) equipment manufacturers for the food industry are experiencing a growing demand for their equipment and technology as we move through 2016. A prominent HPP equipment manufacturer who is represented here in New Zealand is Hiperbaric.
Auckland, 21 April 2016 - HPP is a preservative technology which does not involves heat and is applied to already-packed products, any possible recontamination that may occur during packing will be controlled. With the growing popularity and demand of raw, natural and additive free products, the global food industry is facing fundamental changes to conquer a customer that is becoming more and more informed and exigent by the day.
In a recent edition of the New Zealand Food Technology magazine an excellent article appeared tracing the development of nonthermal processing technologies. It is repeated here or you can read it in the New Zealand Food Technology Magazine:
It was 1898 when B H Hite, a chemist from West Virginia, introduced milk in a manual press he had made for achieving high hydrostatic pressures; he realised that milk lasted longer after doing so. Pressure has killed the spoilage bugs, he thought and he was right.
Almost at the same time and following Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity in 1895, first research on the use of ionising energy to destroy microbes in food was published in a German medical journal. In the late 1940s, B L Flaumenbaum observed in his lab in Germany that fruit subjected to quick pulsed electricity saw their permeability increased, and microbes were inactivated.
Over a century after these initial discoveries and thanks to the evolution of designs and materials, we are seeing that these old solutions have, finally, become available to the food industry in a profitable way. The first method is now known as High Pressure Processing (HPP); the third, as Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF); the second, food irradiation, had an earlier adoption (it was firstly approved in the United States in 1986 and irradiated foods started to be commercialised in the 1990s).
In the last few years other technological advances have appeared in the food manufacturing space. With ultrasound, food manufacturers can take advantage of the cavitation generated by sound waves passing through the food and breaking the cell membranes of bacteria. Cold plasma, the most recent development in the sector, is still in the experimental phase. Plasma, aka the ‘fourth state’ of matter, is obtained applying extremely high energies to a gas, creating a gliding arc of ionised, nonthermal plasma that is able to sterilise the surface of foods.
These new techniques fit well in schemes pursued by food manufacturers, such as the hurdle concept and the minimal processing scheme which, respectively, promise food safety through putting barriers to the presence and growth of bugs along the food processing chain, and nutrition, functionality and retention of freshness in case of the latter minimal, gentle processing. Something else is shared by irradiation, high pressure processing, pulsed electric fields, or plasma treatment: they are all nonthermal technologies, meaning they don’t involve heating. These processes are applied to the food usually in chilled or ambient temperature condition so the components can stay fresh.
Heating the food is the traditional way of preserving foodstuffs and getting rid of undesirable spoilage microorganisms and pathogens. It is a great and effective way for obtaining safe products that last longer in our fridge or on the shelves. But it tends to flatten flavours and colours, and to harm the functionality and nutrition of the fresh, destroying for example vitamins or antioxidants. Additives and preservatives are the second common tool for making foods stable and safer, but consumers don’t want to see them on the labels. Overall, consumer demand is generating the need for new processing solutions and meals that are fresher, more natural, minimally processed, and with no artificial ingredients. These are precisely the most complicated to handle in the factory from the perspective of food safety and preservation, and this is why new hurdles and solutions are being implemented.
HPP systems are probably the highest growth category, with foods worth more than 750,000 Tons of product being processed annually, according to Hiperbaric, S.A., Burgos, Spain, a leading manufacturer of these industrial installations. The technique basically consists in applying pressures around 6,000 bar (6,000 atmospheres or 87,000 psi) to food during three to five minutes. Imagine submerging your bottle of fresh juice or your luncheon meat in the bottom of an ocean that was 60Km deep – 6 times more than the depth of the Mariana Trench, and that’s what high pressure processing is about. The microbes are destroyed but the food stays intact because pressure is isostatic, transmitted by water, and then equal from all sides.
HPP has seen spectacular growth over the past decade, and is projected to become one of the key factors of the new food industry and the most promising emerging technique, according to a Campden BRI (UK) study published in the journal Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies this year.
According to Hiperbaric, Cold Pressure Tecnology or HPP (High Pressure Processing) is becoming more mainstream in certain food spaces outside the traditional ones (mainly guacamole, continental meats, lobsters, to name a few), and two particular segments are now driving its growth: cold pressed juices, and HPP Tolling.
In the past three years, the cold pressed juice category has experienced explosive growth with well known names such as Suja, Evolution Fresh, Blueprint, Coldpress, Harmless Harvest etc. All of them are Hiperbaric customers. The Spanish company is growing this year to a turnover of more than 70m and has an order backlog for 2016 that indicates it might surpass 100m in 2016.
The second segment in which HPP technology is becoming more widely implemented is the Tolling/Copacking business model, in which contract service companies, refrigerated service suppliers and logistic platforms are adding Hiperbaric lines as a way to add value to their services. Using the network of toll HPP services, any food maker with a need for a pathogen lethality intervention, a extension of the product shelf life, or access to export markets, can access high pressure technology and pay on a per Kg, per pack or per batch basis, without the need of investing in its own Hiperbaric system.
In Australia and New Zealand, currently a total of 14 HPP systems are operating in most of the different segments including meat, shellfish, juices, nut milk, guacamole, RTE meals etc.
From laboratory to final industrial practice, gentle physical processes are helping the food industry in the making of hopefully safer, better eats and displacing chemicals from our diets. If evolution continues as expected and the price of these systems is progressively brought down, we will increasingly see pressurised meals and cold plasma hygienised dinners on our table.
For more information contact:
Scanz Technologies Ltd.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.Phone: 09 520 2544
In 2011 Italian, Lucca Mucchi set up the iLD in-line devices assisted by a team of highly skilled technologists whose aim was to develop and produce hi-tech strategic sensing solutions named mOisTori / mOisTracker, for improving industrial production processes.The members of this team brought with them a vast wealth of experience in the field of non-intrusive sensing systems founded on microwave-frequency technology, and were well aware of the opportunities that the real-time non-destructive solutions now provide.This technology plays a vital role in the food industry which motivated Tony Rumbold, founder of SCANZ Technologies, to develop a relationship with iLD which culmulated in SCANZ becoming their NZ representative.
Of particular interest to industry in New Zealand would be the mOisTracker® product range. This is based on multi- parameter planar microwave sensors over a surface of which the material is made to flow, coupled to a digital control unit.The mOisTracker® Cylindrical family is suitable for measuring powder, granular material, coffee, maize, semi-finished cream, liquids food, starches and derivatives and can be installed, for example on a pipe; it is also suitable for use with ceramic powder, etc.
The mOisTracker® Planar and Cylindrical sensor family provides smart solutions for real- time measurement of moisture and density in solid raw materials (paper, cement, chips, granulates, breads, panels, pellets, tiles, powder and food products for the oven or kiln, ceramic powders and colours, etc.), liquids (food, slips, glues, etc.) and semi-finished products (garnishing and filling creams, etc.), on production lines of industrial processes.
To discuss your requirements with Tony you can reach him on:
Scanz Technologies Ltd.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.Phone: 09 520 2544 www.scanztech.com
When a group of the world’s largest meat processors wanted to overhaul their quality assurance, they went to the world’s largest on-line and at-line gauge and analyser manufacturers, NDC Technologies.Now the requirements were very specific. The companies were sick of workers wasting time traipsing through the lab so the analyser had to live beside the line. Which meant it had to be IP65 and of industrial construction.
They didn’t want service schedules and they wanted it to be guaranteed never to drift which means no recalibrations. It had to be able to be networked.
NDC’s Meat Infralab met all those requirements, it has Ausmeat and other approvals and is well supported in New Zeaaland through Ganley Engineering.Call Simon Ganley at Ganley Engineering Ltd ph 09 42 83426. You can email Simon This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and the website is www.ganleyengineering.co.nz
If you are serious about meat quality and saving money, so are we.
You can also Google www.ndc.com and check it out.
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242