April 2019

32 n FOOD AND BEVERAGE April 2019 www.drivesncontrols.com How Instagram is changing food and bev production S tarbucks recently sold a limited-edition unicorn frappuccino for just five days. Companies wouldn’t normally expect such a short timespan to have a significant impact on their customers, but the brightly coloured beverage had more than 1.3 billion impressions on Twitter and 150,000 posts were tagged with #unicornfrappuccino on Instagram. Anyone who uses social media will know how prevalent pictures of food have become. With 178 million photos tagged with #food on Instagram and research showing that a third of millennials regularly post pictures of their food on social media, food and beverage companies are waking up to the idea that the aesthetic of their food counts. Taco Bell’s chief innovation officer Liz Matthews says that now, when considering a newmenu item, the food development team considers how the itemwill look in photos. With trends such as“freakshakes”– milkshakes with obscene amounts of cakes and cookies on the top – spreading across many restaurants, the more Instagram-friendly the item, the better it is for promoting a company. This change in the food and beverage industry is not only having an impact not only in cafes and restaurants, but also in factories. Food and beverage manufacturers are increasingly considering the social media aesthetic of their products. While they may not be mass-producing rainbow bagels to sell at supermarkets, many are reconsidering the visual appeal of their products, including the packaging the products are sold in, to generate more images on social media. As manufacturers reconsider the appearance of their products, they will expect their plant managers to be able to reproduce the items that their development team create. This means that food and beverage plants must be able to adapt to meet these needs. Incorporating digitalisation across the manufacturing process helps to manage the complexities brought on by product variations. By doing this, manufacturers can manage their plant and the exact needs of each recipe in a more cost-efficient and timely manner. But what does digitalisation really mean in practice? Let’s take the example of the rainbow bagel. A medium-sized bakery decides to produce these bagels and package six of them in a limited edition box. The main bagel recipe is the same, however with these variations they need to be able to add colourings and accommodate the picking and packing of the new box. By implementing a MOM (manufacturing operations management) system, plant managers can adapt more easily to changes in the aesthetics of their products. At the start of the supply chain, the MOM system can make adjustments for the needs of the new recipe. In the case of a rainbow bagel, it can make sure that the new colourings are ordered and delivered on time, to avoid a situation where one colour has not been ordered and halts production. Modern robots – such as ABB’s FlexPicker – can be programmed in 3D virtual environments. This allows their movements to be programmed and tested before being used on a new product in the factory, thus reducing downtime and wastage. Once the setup has been confirmed on the virtual world, the program can run correctly instantly, reducing the delay in getting the product to market (provided it is set up identically in the real world). Once manufactured and decorated, the new aesthetically-pleasing products may be more delicate than standard versions. If they are not transported carefully around the factory, they may bump into edges and land with a thump into a sorting tray, losing their appearance – and could become popular on Instagram for the wrong reasons. With luxury mass-produced brands, cafes and restaurants already embracing the opportunities for aesthetically pleasing and social-media- friendly products, it is time for food and beverage plants to do the same and to start capitalising on the hype. After all, with unicorn frappucinos creating such a buzz on social media, why shouldn’t brands want to take advantage of this marketing opportunity? n Images of food and drinks have become a phenomenon on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. Darcy Simonis, ABB’s food and beverage industry network leader, looks at how this trend is affecting the priorities of food and beverage manufacturers. Products such as rainbow bagels present challenges – and opportunities – for food manufacturers