VISUM devices and PAT Solutions’ presentation at The EIC Corporate Days with AB InBev

 

The EIC Corporate Days with AB InBev took place in Leuven, Belgium, from 19th to 20th February. This event was a tailor-made acceleration service addressed to the 32 EIC-funded SMEs selected to collaborate with AB InBev, the world’s leading brewer and one of Europe’s biggest food and drinks companies.

IRIS Technology Solutions was one of the selected companies in the category of digital solutions to present our business cases to the more than 100 senior leaders of AB InBev at the group’s Global Innovation and Technology Center (GITEC).

Recently, a great food safety scandal broke out in Brazil. Backer beer rang the alarm when four people dead and other nineteen were poisoned after drinking beer of this brand.

The Brazilian health authorities banned the sale throughout the country of any of the brands of the Backer brewery and the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) obliged all bars, restaurants and shops in the country to withdraw these products from the market.

The laboratory test run by the Ministry of Agriculture identified the presence of mono ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol in at least 21 batches of the brewery. These substances are toxic and should not have in contact with liquids but some companies use them as refrigeration systems thanks to their antifreeze properties.

Nowadays, three are the hypotheses the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture are considering: sabotage, leakage or improper use of these substances. As a preventive measure, it has ordered the suspension of production of the Backer brewery.

In a world that is getting more and more automated, could technology have done something to prevent this disaster?

Taking as a reference the Backer case, IRIS Technology explained to the leaders of AB InBev the power of laboratory chemical analytical technology on-site and in-line to assure non-targeted early anomaly detection. Combining different types of Spectroscopy-based VISUM devices right along the value chain different kind of industries could improve and assure their product quality in order to protect brand image and costumers.

The implementation of PAT turnkey solutions must be done by an experienced engineering, as we are, to assure the proper functionality of the quality inspection devices and the accomplishment of the company needs and requirements.

PAT (Process Analytical Technologies) benefits are the following:

  • Cost reduction.
  • Quality standardisation.
  • Greater safety, efficiency and sustainability.
  • Real-time information for decision support and/or valuable data for driving closed-loop actuation.
  • End-to-end data exchanges between the processing line and relevant upstream & downstream processes.
  • Reduction of recall risks.

 

 

Greater knowledge of the Production Process is a synonym of Quality Assurance and greater Efficiency and Productivity.

 If you have any question about how VISUM could improve your quality inspection process, don’t hesitate to contact us [email protected]

Oonagh McNerney, Co-founder and Director at IRIS