Research by the University of Lincoln shows that machinery companies and their food industry customers are missing out on opportunities to automate both production and packaging.
Senior lecturer in food manufacture Mike Dudbridge says that talk about offering "solutions" rather than selling machines is cheap. "Equipment suppliers are still coming in to sell a machine rather than to understand the company," he said.
This attitude was especially unhelpful for the chilled food sector, which tended to supply the supermarket own-label market and was something of a "fashion industry"
"People supplying short-life products need to produce some of everything every day. They also have to maintain flexibility because the goalposts move so often," he said.
The research, based on interviews with 250 food companies in the UK, France and Germany, found that levels of automation were similar in all three countries, although there was evidence of more full-line automation in Germany. By far the most common justification for automation was headcount and cost-reduction, with very few manufacturers citing consistency and quality.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, food companies felt that retailers showed even less understanding of their needs than equipment suppliers. But according to Dudbridge, if manufacturers were assured that pack formats would not change for a given period, that would enable them to automate and deliver lower prices.
The project was sponsored by equipment company Ishida Europe.
Lincoln's Holbeach Campus houses the university's Centre of Vocational Excellence for Food Manufacturing Technology, which will include a £3.3M technical training building, now under construction, to include processing and packaging equipment.