Anuga FoodTec

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Anuga FoodTec

Anuga FoodTec is the world's leading supplier fair for the food & beverage industry.
📍Cologne, Germany: 23-26 February 2027

As the leading global trade fair, Anuga FoodTec is the most important driving force of the international food and beverage industry again. It is the only trade fair in the world that covers all aspects of food production. The industry presents its innovations and technological visions at Anuga FoodTec – from processing, filling and packaging technology to packaging materials, ingredients, food saf

ety and the entire range of innovations from all the areas associated with food production. It provides every solution for every food industry!

08/06/2026

The most valuable insights often emerge from conversations, not presentations.

Anuga FoodTec 2027 is introducing the Community Hub SMART — a dedicated arena for exchange, collaboration and hands-on engagement with the technologies driving digital transformation in food and beverage production.

Content conception is led by DLG e.V. - German Agricultural Society, anchoring the programme in four areas of active industry development:

🤖 Robotics & automation
🧠 Artificial intelligence
🔗 Digitalisation & digital twins
🔒 Cyber security

The format mix reflects how the sector actually learns:

👾 Tech Talks for compact, practice-oriented technology insights
🗣️ Fishbowl discussions where the audience shapes the conversation
🫵🏻 BarCamp sessions where participants co-author the agenda
🎤 Live Showcases presenting partner technologies in direct production context

The scope runs the full value chain — from raw materials management through production to intralogistics.

Cologne. 23–26 February 2027.

03/06/2026

"Innovations on the shopfloor only work if safety is considered from the outset."

That line from Carola K. Herbst, Deputy Managing Director at the DLG Centre for Agriculture and Food, lands differently once you've seen what a production network looks like after a breach.

The incident is not an outlier. As the AFT press team noted ahead of Anuga FoodTec 2027: "Cyber risks no longer affect only classic office IT." Networked processing and packaging lines, cloud-connected quality systems, remote service access — every integration point is a potential entry point.

The structural challenge is well understood: legacy OT environments were designed for isolation. Today most of them are not isolated. Asset discovery, network segmentation, anomaly monitoring, and Zero Trust access — the principle that no device or user is automatically trusted — are now the baseline, not the advanced tier.

NIS-2 sets the regulatory floor across the EU. IEC 62443 defines the technical benchmark for machine and system security. The gap between where most food manufacturers stand and where these frameworks require them to be is where production risk lives.

Anuga FoodTec 2027 addresses this directly. The Smart Hub at Koelnmesse brings together OT security specialists, automation providers and food manufacturers — turning digital production resilience into operational reality.

Navigate Complexity. Smart. Safe. Sustainable.
📌 Cologne, February 23–26, 2027.

01/06/2026

The EU's most ambitious packaging regulation is live. And the recycling industry is quietly collapsing.

In 2023, the EU generated 79.7 million tons of packaging waste — 177.8 kg per resident. Of plastic packaging waste, only 42.1% was recycled. The PPWR mandates full recyclability by 2030.

The economic logic works against it. Low crude oil prices make virgin plastic cheaper than recyclate. By end of 2025, Europe had lost nearly a million tons of recycling capacity through insolvencies and closures.

The industry is responding at two levels. MULTIVAC develops mono-material solutions and reduced-thickness films meeting PPWR requirements. SÜDPACK's Multifol® Extreme achieves 30% weight reduction versus conventional structures — without compromising product protection.

Rethinking sustainability means closing cycles and preserving resources — across markets, regulatory frameworks and infrastructure conditions.

Anuga FoodTec 2027 presents systemic solutions for recycling management, decarbonisation and resource preservation that advance measurable sustainability in the industry.

🔎 Research contributed by DLG e.V. - German Agricultural Society.

28/05/2026

Factory expansion in India. New customers in the US. A new supply chain in Thailand.
This is who comes to Anuga FoodTec.

🌏 Swahar flew in from Bangalore — expanding his factory, looking for European machinery as his company makes the shift to automated production.

From Minnesota, a component manufacturer of electric linear actuators visited customers on the show floor and scouted new partnerships in food processing and packaging.

From Thailand, a buyer came specifically to find new suppliers for his food processing line.

Three continents. Three different business goals. One place where it all comes together.

Anuga FoodTec 2027 — Cologne, February 23–26.

27/05/2026

Could your next machine upgrade legally redefine your role in the production chain?

Upgrade your production line software after January 20, 2027 — and you may legally become the machine's manufacturer. With full liability to match.

The EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230 enters into force on that date. For the first time, it explicitly requires cybersecurity to be part of the safety assessment for machinery — a mandatory condition for CE marking.

For food and beverage manufacturers, this means extending risk analysis to cover attacks on control systems, remote maintenance access, and safety-critical software. "Food and beverage manufacturers that integrate or operate machinery should prepare for the new requirements at an early stage," says Benedikt Pulver, Head of the Machine Safety Department at TÜV SÜD Product Service.

The directive also introduces a concept many operators overlook: substantial modification. Significant hardware or software changes can reclassify the operating company as the legal manufacturer — triggering a new conformity assessment before the machine returns to operation.

🔒 Machine safety and cybersecurity compliance are central to the SAFE pillar at Anuga FoodTec 2027.

📰 Featured in the Anuga FoodTec Magazine by e.V.
👉🏼 https://bit.ly/42YqGqY

22/05/2026

A lot of production floors still rely on periodic lab samples to keep food safety in check.

It works — until the window between sampling and results is exactly when something shifts in the line.

Inline analytics changes that window. Sensors embedded directly in the processing environment register temperature, pH, weight deviation and foreign body presence as the product moves through. The data is there in the moment, not hours later.

Bizerba builds this into end-of-line inspection — AI-supported X-ray, leak detection and label verification running together through their BRAIN2 software so quality and traceability data are connected rather than siloed. Ecolab takes a similar approach to water and membrane monitoring through the ECOLAB3D™ platform and 3D TRASAR™ sensor technology — tracking system behaviour continuously and surfacing deviations before they become performance losses.

Stefan Riest, Marketing Manager Food & Beverage at Ecolab, describes the direction: "The future of CIP and membrane cleaning is data-driven. With CIP IQ and Membrane Insights, we create real-time transparency as the foundation for sustainable, high-performance processes."

From inline analytics and AI-supported quality control to integrated hygiene and prevention concepts — Anuga FoodTec 2027 shows how holistic safety approaches protect food production.

Research contributed by DLG e.V.

20/05/2026

🤖 From cobots to Robotics-as-a-Service: automation in food production is changing fast.

STÄUBLI demonstrated this at Kaufland Fleischwaren in Heilbronn: a hygiene-compatible six-axis robot loading an automatic slicer. 21 sausage varieties. Four packaging formats. One automated system.

"Applications like these show that robotics in the food industry are noticeably increasing in breadth", says Carola K. Herbst, DLG e.V. - German Agricultural Society.

KUKA cobots in hygienic design: sensors assess cut quality, two six-axis robots grip, turn and package 50–60 sandwiches per minute. ⚡

AI-based movement planning delivers an estimated 20% performance gain on a four-axle pick-and-place robot, according to Ralf Schubert, Gerhard Schubert GmbH Verpackungsmaschinen. "When AI makes robotics faster, the design of the machinery must progress consistently with this process."

"For small and medium-sized food manufacturers, this can significantly simplify entry into automation, because robotics can be used more flexibly and with less investment of capital", says Roland Thiemann, Director of Anuga FoodTec.

RaaS models bundle maintenance, updates and service into usage-based contracts. New formats trained via tablet.

Anuga FoodTec 2027 — Navigate Complexity. Smart. Safe. Sustainable.

19/05/2026

1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted every year — much of it during processing.

Grape pomace. Apple press cake. Okara from tofu production. Spent grain from brewing. These by-product streams are rich in pectin, polyphenols, protein, and dietary fibre — and for too long, they have been treated as disposal problems rather than production inputs.
The technology to change that already exists. 🔄

Drying and milling extend shelf life. Fractionation concentrates proteins and fibres. Fermentation and enzymatic processes improve functionality. Membrane technology handles liquid streams. Companies like Herbafood Ingredients GmbH are converting apple pomace into functional fruit fibres used in baked goods and meat alternatives. Kern Tec has processed over 2,500 tonnes of stone fruit kernels from the juice industry into ingredients for dairy alternatives. Steinecker, a Krones AG subsidiary, is extracting protein hydrolysates from spent grain for food and supplement applications — work recognised with the German Sustainability Award.

As Dr. Ralph Schneid, Head of Product Development at Steinecker, puts it: "We demonstrate how residues like spent grain can first be used as material — for example to obtain protein hydrolysates for food or dietary supplements."

At Anuga FoodTec 2027, circular economy moves from sustainability debate to industrial efficiency strategy — with direct impact on costs, product development and market positioning.

Anuga FoodTec 2027 — February 23–26 in Cologne.

Research contributed by DLG e.V.

15/05/2026

Everyone is talking about AI in the food industry.
Very few are actually implementing it.

Hendrik Haase and Frank Schroedter surveyed 30 German food companies — primarily managing directors and owners — across 25 questions on how AI is actually being used along the value chain. The findings are specific: in core areas like quality management and R&D, AI remains the exception. Less than 10% of processes across most companies have seen meaningful integration. The barriers are well-documented — missing in-house expertise, tools that don't fit production realities and investment decisions that stall before they start.

What the monitor also surfaces: companies that start small, involve teams early and build internal translation capacity tend to move faster than those waiting for the right moment.

Hendrik Haase, who co-authored the monitor, moderated sessions at Anuga FoodTec 2024 — known for making technically dense topics accessible without flattening them and for connecting the right people in the room.

📰 Read the full article in the Anuga FoodTec Magazine: bit.ly/4n9Hzbm

Research contributed by DLG e.V.

13/05/2026

Plant-based proteins and meat don't share the same process requirements. The difference sits in texture, water retention, and thermal behaviour — and it changes how you configure the entire line.

🔄 Extrusion is where this becomes concrete. Twin-screw technology allows precise control over temperature, pressure, and mechanical shear — producing fibrous, meat-like textures from plant-based inputs. What manufacturers like Coperion, Bühler Group, Clextral and ANDRITZ are demonstrating is that adaptable screw configurations and segmented temperature zones can cover multiple raw materials and product modes within a single system.

Upstream mixing and downstream shaping decisions directly influence what comes out the other end. The same applies to filling, grinders, and cutter systems — all of which require greater flexibility when processing plant-based masses versus conventional meat.

🏭 Companies like Handtmann Processing, GEA Group, Marel, Maschinenfabrik Seydelmann KG and VEMAG have adapted their systems accordingly — extending what their existing platforms can handle rather than building parallel lines.

"The challenge lies in further developing established technologies and at the same time integrating new process approaches with the aim of being able to master the increasing variety of raw materials," says Carola K. Herbst from the German Agricultural Society (DLG e.V. - German Agricultural Society).

⚙️ How well these processes interlock in practice is a central focus of the supporting programme at Anuga FoodTec 2027 — February 23–26, Cologne.

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