Well that’s all folks. IFFA is over for another three years and the Wiley team has marvelled and munched their way through dozens of exhibitions. As mentioned in our first diary entry, a grand total of 860 exhibitors flocked to Frankfurt to showcase the latest in protein processing technology from 44 countries around the world. From traditional meat processing, to state-of-the-art plant-based and laboratory-grown protein production, IFFA covered it all.
Engineering Specialist Peter Finnie and Senior Process Engineer Tim Fitzpatrick have been relaying the coolest things they’ve seen back to us in Brisbane. Here’s their second diary of hot takes.
Day 3: Monday
Tim Fitzpatrick
I didn’t see a cool thing today, so much as just eat it. This burger (below) is made from insect protein. It was genuinely nicely flavoured and had a good mouth feel, which was a real surprise. I’d even eat it again.
Peter Finnie
Here’s something small and new to the market for the engineers. It’s a Bernoulli Gripper, which uses the “Bernoulli effect” to pick up products without actually touching them. When it’s used on flat, hard, non-breathable surfaces it directs a thin stream of air from the gripper to create a low-pressure zone, which sucks parallel surfaces upwards. These grippers can also be used for lightweight clothes and paper although the “contactless” status is lost. It comes in a range of sizes to suit the application. The valves have smooth bodies, which are easy to clean and don’t have any pockets for bacteria to develop.
Day 4: Tuesday
Peter Finnie
Today I just want to mention how much walking we’ve done. We followed about 1000 metres of corridors just to get to Hall 9 on Sunday and opted for the internal bus transfer of a similar distance to Hall 12 on Monday. I’m doing about 16,000 steps each day without any additional effort.
Tom Wiley demonstrates walking long distances through IFFA.
Tim Fitzpatrick
The cool thing of the day award goes to this contactless meat grinder. It’s based on an extruder concept but with some very clever engineering detail to reduce product smearing and shearing.
Notable mention also goes to this German firm that has developed an online ingredient selection tool on their shopping portal. Clients can select all aspects of the product: from product type (i.e. burger; meat or no meat; how much smokey flavour etc) along with a host of other ingredient provenance and flavour options on a very simple semi-pictorial interface. Then the client finalises the order and the product ingredients are shipped anywhere in the world. Wunderbar!
Check out Day 1 of our time at IFFA 2022 here and stay tuned for more updates.
