The United Sorghum Checkoff Program announced today its new national sponsorship of the American Heart Association’s Healthy for Good initiative, which inspires Americans to make lasting changes in their diets and health one small step at a time.

The organization’s Farm-to-School Curriculum aims to bring food science to classrooms.

The organization advocates for incorporating various grains as part of a healthy diet.

Global Organics is proud to recognize its longtime partner, Natíve, for becoming the first Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) sugar producer. 

PureCircle will offer three ingredients from bioconversion—Reb D, Reb M, and Reb AM—to food and beverage manufacturers across the European Union.

The sweetener is 90% as sweet as sucrose while containing 60% fewer calories.

Consumer attitudes and perceptions about health and nutrition issues are always changing. The United Soybean Board’s 19th annual Consumer Attitudes About Nutrition study looks at general nutrition and consumer responses to many of the major issues in the food industry today. The study can be helpful to food industry professionals making formulation, purchasing and marketing decisions.

The World Packaging Organisation’s president Thomas L. Schneider, CPP, discusses meetings and speaking engagements in Sydney, Bankok, new packaging shows and packaging news and technology from across the globe and much more.

Available now, the “Zen Guide to Manufacturing Intelligence” leads manufacturing professionals down the path to an enlightened look at quality metrics that shows the potential for greater quality control and cost savings by extracting more value from manufacturing data.

van Poppel will lead the food solutions firm in its efforts to improve its environmental impact.

The 2010 Census revealed that one in every six U.S. residents is Hispanic. The U.S. Hispanic population ranks second worldwide. Unfortunately, the growing Hispanic population experiences similar health issues as non-Hispanics but the prevalence may be higher.

There are a growing number of gluten-free products in the marketplace

As demand for gluten-free products continues to increase, more manufacturers are entering this niche market, developing a wide range of products in various categories. 

August marked the completion of the gluten-free labeling rule development process. Published in August 2013 by FDA, the final rule put parameters around the voluntary use of the terms “gluten-free,” “free of gluten,” “no gluten” and “without gluten” on food labels.

Artisanal buckwheat snack producer Better With Buckwheat is expanding into six regional and ecommerce grocery chains through June and July. 

Celebrating 20 years in business, with its latest cookbook hot out of the oven, Metropolitan Bakery, Philadelphia, delights in baking delicious breads and creating incredible pastries, popcorn and granola, among other foods. 

Family-owned Ballreich Bros., Tiffin, Ohio, has a large fan base that pines for its various potato chips as well as crispy new shoestring potato sticks, popcorn, pretzels and other snacks. 

Ballreich Bros.’ 75,000-sq.-ft. potato chip and snack plant churns out 2,000-5,000 lb. of product an hour. Manufacturing product on a just-in-time basis, the family owned and operated company in Tiffin, Ohio, also produces new Sweet Potato Chips and shoestring Potato Sticks in three flavors.

New influences, trends and preferences are redirecting many bakers to develop and produce new products. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is still a critical issue, as are commodities, private-label products and many business consolidations. 

The bread market is changing, with fluctuating commodity prices, a still-sluggish economy, consolidations, mergers and buyouts. 

‘Going from good to great’ is a pervasive theme at Phoenix-based Capistrano’s Bakery. So is the phrase, ‘It Can Be Done.’ This rather quiet, wholesale artisan baker works hard to ensure that its products are tasty, innovative and what its customers want. 

Golden Boy Pies still retains the homespun ideals of its roots, despite notable expansion over the years—and the future is poised to bring more of the same.

Today’s market for better-for-you extruded snacks is skyrocketing, with products like veggie straws and other puffed/expanded products finding appeal among shoppers seeking alternatives to traditional offerings.

It can be rather tough for sweet goods products these days. The huge movement to better-for-you items hasn’t exactly been good news and a smooth fairway for this category. But bakers and manufacturers of sweet goods, snack cakes and other delectable treats are watching the demands just as closely as producers in other bakery market segments, and heeding the calls.

Cookies are a robust segment within the bakery industry. There are brands that have been around for decades and have become household names, but there are also many up-and-coming brands that offer unique flavors for niche markets and are set to become the next class of pros.

Busy lifestyles and affordability aren’t the only reasons why consumers add frozen baked goods to their shopping cart each week.

Harris Interactive recently released the results of its 2012 Harris Poll EquiTrend study, which analyzed the responses of more than 38,500 consumers on key measures of brand health for more than 1,500 lifestyle, product and service brands. When questioned about the brands they are likely to reach for when craving a salty snack, respondents chose Lay’s Potato Chips—the top-ranked salty snack for the past eight years—followed by two other Frito-Lay North America brands, Doritos and Tostitos.

Pretzels have been around for more than a thousand years, originating in southern Europe around 610 A.D., according to historians. Today, crispy, hard pretzels are consumed by people in many of the countries represented at the 2012 Olympics.

When it comes to the Olympics, most people prefer some sports over others. The same holds true for consumers when it comes to snack foods.

Low in calories, high in fiber—popcorn may just be the perfect natural snack. Of course, that doesn’t stop manufacturers from trying to up the ante by enhancing all the whole grain has to offer. Now, popcorn can be found competing with chips, pretzels and even candy in the snacking Olympics.

Pork rinds are probably the most misunderstood item in the snack category. This is surprising, because people have been eating pork rinds—also called pork skins—as long as they have been eating pigs. One of the world’s first snack foods created thousands of years ago, and favored in the southern states, pork rinds are a simple combination of fried pork skins and salt.

Biscuit lovers have until midnight on April 22 to enter their favorite biscuit recipes in the International Biscuit Festival 2013 Biscuit Bake Off.

Bakery products are evolving all the time in today’s market. To win the race, they mix healthful and tasty ingredients with a scoop of distinction.

Flowers Foods’ latest addition to its product portfolio—Mrs. Freshley’s Cinnamon Coffee Cakes—is sure to please cinnamon lovers.

Better-for-you ingredients and innovative flavors continue to keep potato chips at the top of consumers’ list of favorite snacks, while the classics still resonate.

When it comes to sweet goods like doughnuts, Danishes, sweet rolls, muffins and coffee cake, the market is in a state of flux. As Walter Postelwait, president of Pak Group LLC/Bellarise Baking Ingredients, Pasadena, CA, puts it: “The total segment appears to be growing slowly, but has hot pockets of activity.”

The chips segment has grown quite lively over the past year, with new product areas emerging and others, like apple chips, seeing considerable growth and maturation. Snack producers are also starting to grow beyond potatoes, offering sweet potato, beet and parsnip chips.

Snack and bakery companies looking to purchase new or improved ovens, proofers, fryers, and dryers have a long list of requests when it comes to features and benefits, according to manufacturers of those types of equipment.

The companies are empowering consumers to "act" and make an impact with every bar.

The gluten- and peanut-free formulation is designed to be school-friendly.

RE:DO plant-based, high-protein bars were created with Olympian input.

The snack bars, made with whole-grain oats, are vegan, non-GMO, gluten-free, kosher, and free from soy.

The human-machine interface (HMI) is essential in an operator’s daily work, as it represents how he or she can use and control the equipment, via technology. These days, using an HMI is all about fostering an easy user experience.

Siemens recently announced a limited-time offer, effective until May 31, 2017. Under this program, users of any machine tool with SINUMERIK CNC onboard will receive a variety of additional services, plus training and a 10% discount on spare parts orders. 

In his 1954 compendium of writings, “Ideas and Opinions,” Albert Einstein said that “all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.” He put forth this scientific “fundamental truth” in connection to his predecessors Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, tying it to the origins of modern science.

Hardy Process Solutions announced a new version of the HI 6600 Modular Sensor Systems for PROFIBUS-DP control systems.

A warehouse management system (WMS) centers on software that supports day-to-day operations. WMS programs enable centralized management of a wide range of tasks, including tracking inventory levels and stock locations, order fulfillment, and shipping and receiving.

The Beckhoff Automation booth (S-6302) will be the center of automation technology (AT) and IT convergence at Pack Expo 2017 in Las Vegas.

Thiele Technologies has announced that it soon will integrate Allen-Bradley control software on SYMACH Palletizers.

Inside the proceedings of PACK EXPO Las Vegas, including a survey of new packaging equipment, materials, technology and more.