Each year, the next wave of enticing snacks, meals and drinks inspire food manufacturing companies to develop new recipes to keep up with the customer demand. This year, we’re seeing consumers replace traditional meals with snack foods and focusing on those that help fulfill their health goals – such as boosting energy, improving mood, or lowering their intake of additives or artificial ingredients. As a result, food companies have turned to utilizing different ingredients in their products to increase protein content, decrease the use of artificial sweeteners and provide health-conscious options to consumers with diet-related medical conditions.
Healthy Snacking is More Popular than Meals
In supermarkets and convenience stores, consumers are seeing snack foods take on different shapes and sizes that offer opportunities for portion control while still being fun to eat. “Nutrition snacks” have emerged as their own category that promise to provide the vitamins and minerals that might be lacking in a consumer’s diet. These bite-sized products can help snackers reach the recommended daily values of nutrients in a pinch, assisting them in achieving their wellness goals every day. Ingredients like ashwagandha, Vitamin D3 and Maitake mushrooms are becoming popular additions to foods and beverages that provide health benefits to all age groups across the world.
Integrating More Ingredients
As demand for more and more variety increases, it can become increasingly difficult for food manufacturers to keep up with the storage, tracking and automation demands these recipes require. At Horizon Systems, we understand how important it is to maintain product consistency, equipment durability and process effectiveness. Our range of ingredient storage options help companies properly store their valuable recipe ingredients while reducing loss due to product dusting and decreasing environmental contamination, while our ingredient tracking solutions assist in recording received materials and following them pre- and post-inclusion throughout the process. Custom, automated lot-tracking programs can integrate radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, barcodes or QR codes into new or existing inventory systems to help with employee accuracy and to reduce the possibility of producing a bad batch.
Consumers Expect Sustainability
The world has become very dependent on animal protein and crops like wheat, rice and corn. The supply and production losses of these ingredients could be severely affected by climate change, so it is increasingly vital that food manufacturing companies start to diversify the ingredients in their products. Companies are exploring different plant-based proteins like mushrooms, walnuts and legumes, as well as ancient grains like buckwheat, amaranth and millet to develop into more sustainable food products that can benefit consumer health and decrease environmental impact.
One way in which Horizon Systems helps customers be more sustainable is by providing risk-appropriate processing solutions that are sanitary, safe and reliable. Our custom-engineered solutions include utilizing equipment that can be easily cleaned, such as our Kleenfeed Screw Feeder and Easy Clean Rotary Airlock, as well as by applying food grade finishes to provide safe surfaces for the passage of pet food products. We also execute food grade welds to prevent the housing and growth of bacteria.
Plan Ahead with Horizon Systems
The experts at Horizon Systems have been tracking trends in food production for more than 40 years. We engineer and manufacture forward-thinking solutions designed to serve our customers today and tomorrow. Contact a representative today to discuss how we can help you continue to meet consumer expectations.