HELPING TO FEED THE WORLD

The food industry is under increasing pressure to meet the needs of a growing world population that is becoming more urbanized. GEA has a wide-ranging portfolio that spans almost the entire food chain – around 70 per cent of the products sold in supermarkets have been in contact with our technology.

Innovative Food Technology

In the industrialized countries there is an upward trend towards convenience foods that are nutritious, healthy and easy to prepare.

We provide innovative solutions for preparing, separating, further processing, preserving, chilling, packaging and freezing a wide variety of meat, poultry, fish, seafood, oils and fats, fruit, vegetables, dairy products, bread, confectionary and food ingredients.

From standard plant systems to customized solutions, all GEA food technology is designed to meet optimum hygiene and quality standards, while operating efficiently and sustainably. Our technical expertise is complemented by project management, planning and cost control services to help our customers achieve flexible and cost-effective food production.

Adding Value to Food Processing

Global food producers understand the need to protect their brands, so when they need to innovate, they often look for the support of a proven technology provider.

Development of new food products can be a costly and labor-intensive investment for many customers. Add to that, complex formulation, detailed process design and plant validation, this can become a daunting process for some customers to undertake alone.

To help achieve greater confidence in the safe and repeatable production of your food products prior to market release, GEA has built dedicated test centers, designed to aid development and trial at a small scale before releasing for larger scale production.

Critical process technologies including separation, formulation, mixing, evaporation, and drying are available in our many small-scale test plants enabling you to conveniently prove your product or process before making a large-scale investment.

For example – our new Bakery Experience Centers (BEC) located in Schio and in Verona, Italy have been established to allow customers to trial new baked goods recipes in a controlled environment. This minimizes risk and allows customers to free up their own plant whilst simultaneously running new product trials offline. Together with you, our bakery experts can provide guidance on optimal setup between recipe and plant design before going into full-scale production.

With decades of process experience gained from food processing plants all over the world, our test centers give you the confidence that the process units we deliver are optimized to suit the local process and environmental conditions. In addition, the ongoing refinements that we make through offline testing will ultimately benefit the final solution for your production facility.

Process design is only part of our offering. With GEA, you have access to the latest technologies, equipment and engineering expertise, which we will combine to deliver your complete end-to-end solution.

Our test centers are:

• Bakery – Schio and Verona (Italy)
• Liquid Mixing – Copenhagen (Denmark), Ahaus (Germany)
• Heat treatment – Ahaus (Germany)
• Aseptic Processing – Ahaus (Germany)
• Homogenization – Parma (Italy)
• Separation – Oelde (Germany)
• Powder mixing – Hamilton (New Zealand)
• Powder Handling – Copenhagen (Denmark)
• Spray Drying – Copenhagen (Denmark); Maryland (USA)
• Freeze Drying – Copenhagen (Denmark)
• Solids Feed Drying – Copenhagen (Denmark)
• Evaporation/distillation/membrane filtration – Karlsruhe (Germany)
• Filtration – Hudson (USA)
• Freezing – Richmond (Canada); Bakel (Netherlands)
• Preparation, injection and further food processing – Bakel (Netherlands)
• Thermoforming packaging – Wallau (Germany)
• Slicing and loading – Kempten (Germany)
• Vertical packaging, lollipop and sugar cube manufacturing – Weert (Netherlands)
• Food processing and packaging – Frisco (TX, USA)

Contact us to find out more about how GEA can add value to your food processing needs.