News
16/03/21

Bizerba: the future of food safety goes through the culture of change

Since 1866 Bizerba has played a leading role in the evolution of weight determination technologies; it is currently present in 120 countries and has over 4300 employees worldwide. Italy is covered by a dense commercial network, specialized in weight control, labelling and tracing systems. Bizerba's product portfolio also includes solutions for slicing, processing, weighing, cash, control, goods preparation. Guido Melone, Industry Channel Manager of the Italian branch, talks to us about the market prospects and the company vision of the coming years.

 

What news do you bring to the market during this period?

 

The drive for technological solutions concerns in particular food safety, with specific attention to the quality expressed at the level of production. Bizerba operates in the world of food, as per tradition also of the German parent company, which has its roots in this segment; a family company, which has become a multinational company, but still owned by a family, which has broadened its business horizons, long overcoming the concept of weight, which is the market for which we are recognized. Bizerba's horizon is therefore strengthened at such an important historical moment, towards food quality and safety. The tradition in the development of technologies for detecting the weight and metrological characteristics of a product, has been enriched with an element of value: the label. It used to be a banal tag, with modest characteristics, but today the label is a very powerful, modern, rapid means of ensuring that the consumer unit is reunited with the consumer.

 

One of the objectives of our technology is therefore to ensure quality by protecting the product from contaminants, a risk always on the horizon when it comes to food processing. The development of ad hoc technologies, such as x-ray machines or metal detectors by specialized players, has allowed Bizerba to choose its own strategy: integrate these technologies in order to ensure the detection of different safety features. These are not all-round surveys made online, although carried out and recorded in the same context, but controls that validate the upstream process operation, to qualify the contaminated even before giving a definitive shape to a package or a product. Alongside these aspects there is also Bizerba's traditional business on weight control, a theme more related to safety than you think. The control environment, in this key, therefore consists of several elements, ranging from the packing unit to the transport unit. At the end-of-line, for example, we have been carrying out the control for years through an artificial review combined between surface evaluation and product crossing. The surface is normally controlled in all its facets through classic computer vision systems, while, as far as the content is concerned, we talk about crossing with x-ray technology, naturally small in size, suitable for protected environments, inside rooms designed for a safe and certified production process to which Bizerba has managed to give greater value.

 

What expectations do you have about the exhibition?

 

The fair itself is an instrument that should be renewed with formulas that gradually lead us to dematerialize. Years ago I had a dream, to do a hologram fair to reduce the impact of transporting machines and systems, giving space to high tech, holograms, photographic installations, digitalization pushed also in networking. But about the event, there is one thing that has always fascinated me and that does not change: the movement to a place, not so much reaching it, but traveling a space towards a goal, reorganizing thoughts to give it shape and meaning, savoring change. I don't think that mankind can do without one physical part and feel the other. Unfortunately, we have been experiencing this for a long time. We can do without it for a while, because we recognized ourselves at the time, I absolutely do not believe that the aspect of fairness, sociality, doing business together, can do less than these moments.

 

What is your view of the market in the coming months?

 

The perspective concerns the companies themselves: doing business, the result of many people, of many years of work, where the real gain, in reality, is to do something together and arrive at a result.

I have recovered, in this period of smart working, the attention to worry about touching people without being able to do so, touching their strings, their motivations, their doubts, fulfilling their duties; it was a period, which allowed people like me to make some important reflections: meanwhile on the performance level of managers, which must always be on the crest of the wave; In my opinion, this is a subject that should be discussed again. To concern man or woman in these roles, from the point of view of their intrinsic characteristic: thought and therefore imagination. Put yourself in the mental condition of imagining transformation. In this period, a winning company can only stop, think of new modes of expression, read the change, considering that at this moment, we do not have clear boundaries and contours.

A good manager, a company, must open up to new questions, such as "what can I do differently?" not better, different. Discover areas of new interest, which in the daily vortex it is not possible to identify, because they are overwhelmed by unsustainable rhythms.

Vision means to me: a structural, organizational and behavioural rethinking as a tool to face the next few years.