By Oh Boon Ping

IF YOU want to see how technology is benefiting the food manufacturing industry, look no further than Chinatown Food Corporation. It has managed to trim the cost of its operations to such an extent that it can now afford to sell its rice balls for a third less.

This is making the exporter more competitive, and it is not the only one that has technology to thank.

Exports from Singapore's food manufacturing sector grew by 11.6 per cent to $3 billion last year, with more SMEs getting a production boost from technology.

Spring Singapore's industry development group director Chow Tat Kong said at a seminar that automation had helped food companies here in various ways.

'Automation cuts labour costs and enhances quality, reliability and consistency of food produced, all of which are very important. Food safety and hygiene are also improved as automation allows for less manual intervention,' he noted.

Chinatown Food Corporation, for example, racked up sales of more than $10 million last year.

Said managing director Sunny Koh: 'When we started operations, the process was mostly manual with a bit of automation, but we had plans to export our products to compete in certain territories, like Hong Kong or China. So in 1996, we invested in the Spiral Quick Freezing equipment - about $800,000 - and pumped another $1 million into automation in 2000 when we moved to Senoko.'

According to Mr Koh, automation helps cut the production cost, and this allowed the firm to lower its retail price to $1.95 for 15 pieces of rice balls weighing 300 grammes.

In contrast, the firm used to charge the same retail price of $1.95 for just 10 pieces of rice balls weighing 200 grammes when it first opened its doors.

Before the technological leap, the output per worker every eight hours used to be 45 cartons. That has now jumped to 105 cartons.

'So the automation has made us more competitive, with higher efficiency and higher capacity,' said Mr Koh.

Another firm which has benefited from automating its food production is Tungsan Food Industries.

The firm, which started automation in the 90s, said that it began by customising some of its machines 'to partial automation so as to increase production volume', said its general manager Edvin Tan.

Also, it is not easy to hire and recruit capable production workers. Automation can help reduce the reliance on manpower.

By adapting conventional food technology to its production, Tungsan managed to raise the quality of its products and improve shelf life, consistency, hygiene, colour and texture.

Said Mr Tan: 'We now employ full automation in the packaging department for our pastes and sauces using a rotary packaging machine from Japan.

'There is an engineering company supporting us, from sourcing, formulating, test-trial, customising, commissioning to technical support.'

According to Mr Tan, production capacity has since risen more than 150 per cent with automation and relocation to a bigger factory four years ago. 'We are currently producing about six tonnes of pastes and sauces daily. We have been experiencing positive revenue growth for the last 10 years,' he said. Plans are now afoot to automate its chilli processing line by purchasing a set of machines to wash, grind, mix, fine-grind and pack in a continuous line.

In recent years, Spring Singapore has organised a number of study trips to Japan and the US that allowed Singapore food companies to witness the potential of food automation.

Said Ms Lim Su Chen, who heads the food manufacturing division: ' Food manufacturing companies in Japan applies extensive automation technology in their production processes in order to achieve superior quality with minimum human interference and touch.'

She added that food firms should consider the long term benefits and the returns, tangible and intangible, when investing in automation. Specific factors to consider include space optimisation, equipment design, maintenance, and consistency and capacity.

According to Spring's food manufacturing manager Gwen Tan, the global food industry now faces two major challenges in the immediate future - to produce more high quality food in a sustainable way to feed a growing world population, and to provide the individual consumer with food that can prevent health problems.

'Nanotechnologies may contribute to resolving these challenges. The intersection of nanotechnology and food science offers new avenues to improve food quality, while the new packaging concept increases the shelf life of perishable products and will allow more efficient logistics system.'

Besides, convenient and easy preparation of food appears to be the dominant trend driving growth in the global food market. The most successful new product developments reflect a growing consumer demand for products that ease the effects of increasingly busy lifestyles and the consequent constraints on food preparation and shopping time.

In this aspect, packaging will play an important role in stimulating growth, further emphasising the importance of branding and technological innovations.

Sustainable and eco-friendly products are in vogue. This is particularly true for food packaging where shipments of sustainable or 'green' packaging exceeded $37 billion in 2005.

The market will continue to see annual increases in value, with the market supply for sustainable packaging forecasted to surpass $42 billion in 2010.

This article was first published in The Business Times on Aug 12, 2008.

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