Innovation Trends

The World Food Programme estimates that 45 million people are currently on the brink of famine. Last year, the UN estimated that about 800 million people were already living with hunger. Ending hunger is classified as the second of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals to achieve by 2030, yet statistics are so alarming that call for quicker actions. Food insecurity has doubled in the past two years, food prices are spiraling and - although food supplies have been first disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic then by the Ukrainian conflict - global hunger is an ongoing, long-standing problem that needs…

English is the most widely spoken language in various contexts in the world and it has been the global language of trade for a long time. This still holds true especially for meetings, negotiations and contracts yet, when it comes to online sales, the scenario is rather different these days. As most of the action in today’s export industry takes place online, offering a multilingual experience becomes central to any efficient marketing strategy. Several studies have demonstrated that, on average, 75% of people want to purchase products in their native language and 92.2% want to make purchases in their local…

The pandemic and the supply chain disruptions that followed have highlighted how important it is for many consumer goods - particularly perishable foods - to be delivered intact and on time. At the same time, the attention paid by customers to food waste and food safety has risen to unprecedented levels. Innovative technologies are now helping the sector to extend the shelf-life of food products while improving food quality and safety. Among them, high pressure processing (HPP) is still the most popular. HPP is a unique food preservation method that utilizes cold water and extreme pressure to inactivate foodborne pathogens…

If the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global supply chain, the conflict in Ukraine is putting it under a serious strain. According to a recent report, just over 600.000 businesses worldwide rely on Ukrainian and Russian suppliers. With such a high number in mind, it is easy to understand how the ongoing war is creating barriers in the market that damage the flow of commodities: mainly wheat, corn, sunflower seed but also oil, gas and semi-finished iron products. Despite the long-term effort to make the whole logistics system more efficient by implementing integrated supply chain management solutions, it seems that now…

Last month we launched e-alifood.com, a new digital touchpoint for food professionals and international buyers alike. Considering the quick acceleration of the digitalization process - boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic - and new emerging market trends, we transformed our offline customer-centered approach into an online shopper experience that is truly unique. We still offer the best selection of top-quality Italian food products to international buyers all over the world; yet this online solution has allowed us to add a new tool to the ecosystem of services we already provide, in order to make our worldwide clients more autonomous about what…

When we started Alifood we had the ambitious dream of matching the quality of our services to that of the Italian food products we export. Twenty-five years later, we can proudly say that we made it. Thanks to an approach which is following the new tendencies after these years of pandemic era, we have now added a new digital touchpoint. A new e-commerce which is based on new exigences of professional and international buyers offering to them an efficient, speed and easy-to-use buying experience. E-alifood.com must be considered and utilized as a new online tool, always accessible from everywhere in…

When it comes to food, packaging plays a fundamental role in keeping it fresh, preserving its quality to reduce food-borne diseases as well as extending its shelf-life to minimize loss and waste. Although a plastic-free attitude is a linear approach to the green question, a circular one may be more efficient. If we take into consideration the negative impact that producing food which remains uneaten or distributing inedible food has on our environment and economy, food loss and food waste call for new packaging solutions. One of the latest trends entails converting agri-food residues into innovative bio-packaging. In this perspective,…

When innovative technologies are mentioned, chances are that the food and beverage industry does not come to mind. Yet our sector is one of the most affected by the ongoing digital transformation which is rapidly reshaping the way that many businesses are run. As a matter of fact, new technologies and the rise of Industry 4.0 are creating a vast range of brand-new opportunities for everybody, food and beverage companies included. These technologies - such as, for example, advanced data analytics, clouds, Internet of Things (IoT) and smart sensors – are proving to have the potential to lead a sustainable…

The digital era we live in entails an ongoing digital revolution that changes technology rapidly. The interesting part of these fast changes is the versatility shown by technological innovations that seem to develop new potential when applied to different sectors. Take blockchain, for example. Initially created to regulate the transactions made in cryptocurrency, it now stands as the most revolutionary way to innovate the food sector and its supply chain. We all know by now that a blockchain is a digital distributed ledger, maintained by a network of multiple computers that store data in the form of blocks which are…

The concept of industry 4.0 is strictly linked to the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution that has its origins in 2011, when the digitization of industrial processes began the transformation that eventually lead to enhanced business productivity and flexibility. In this context, in order to respond to an increasingly efficient production, logistics 4.0 became an essential asset. Despite not having an official definition yet, we could state that every activity encompassing the planning, the storage flow of raw materials, semi-finished and finished products, in order to meet customer requirements via the use of enabling technologies, is part of this recent approach…

As we all know by now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of machines - especially computer systems - to perform tasks commonly associated with human intelligence. Since the term was coined, back in 1956 at a conference in New Hampshire, AI has become a trending topic spanning various sectors. Many are its applications but what mostly interests us is its implementation within the supply chain. The capabilities of AI are already significantly increasing companies’ efficiency in the areas of predictive demand, warehouse management and operations costs. Intelligent systems can rapidly process and analyze a huge number of data thus…

High pressure processing (HPP) is a non-thermal technique that allows food preservation by inactivating harmful pathogens and vegetative spoilage microorganisms that cause food-borne diseases. With this system, most foods can be efficiently preserved while minimizing the impact on taste, texture and nutritional value. HPP utilizes intense pressure (about 400–600 MPa or 58,000–87,000 psi) at a process temperature of less than 45°C. Products in flexible and water-proof packages are conveyed within plastic baskets into a vessel which gets filled with water; this, in turn, gets pressurized at 6,000 bar. Acting uniformly, isostatic pressure inactivates food-borne microorganisms and spoilage enzymes in a…