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Food and Beverages Tech Review: Specials Magazine
Freshness fades gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, yet the cost begins the moment food leaves its point of origin to be cooled and prepared for transportation. A lettuce head cut in the field, grapes waiting before pressing, fish landed at the harbour, meat moving through a processing line and meals prepared in commercial kitchens all remain biologically active after production. They continue to release heat, shed moisture and deteriorate. As internal cell water pressure weakens, texture softens, flavour loses definition, weight declines and shelf life shortens. The NATfresh Cooling technology was designed to slow that decline, but much of the industry still relies on a blunt, surface based method. Conventional systems force cold air onto the exterior and wait for the centre to cool in its own time. Many also use vacuum cooling. The product loses moisture as it cools, while the core stays warmer for longer. It may complete the cold chain, yet it arrives with reduced structural integrity, diminished flavour and lower commercial value than it had at harvest. NATfresh, based in Vissoie, Switzerland, begins from a different premise—cooling does not need to work against the product from the outside. Its patented saturating vapour pressure process, together with quantum physics and thermodynamics, acts directly on the water molecules in the air surrounding the food and the ones within the food itself, cooling the entire mass uniformly in 15 minutes. The cold develops from within, preserving cell walls and maintaining the turgidity that protects texture, flavour, weight and structural strength.
Food Diagnostics Testing Kits
For nearly three decades, Unisensor has stood at the forefront of food diagnostics in Europe, reshaping how the dairy and food industries approach safety, compliance, and quality. Founded in 1997 by Belgian biochemist Dr. Benoît Granier, the company started as a spin-out from the University of Liège. “We began with a simple idea to move testing out of the central lab and closer to where decisions are made,” Dr. Granier recalls. That founding vision continues to define the company’s approach today. From the outset, Unisensor has built a reputation for delivering fast, reliable, and user-friendly testing kits that combine European build quality with practical, field-ready design. Its portfolio, including DipSensor, TwinSensor, Aurox, Extenso, and Beadyplex, covers the entire dairy chain, from farms and collection points to factories and laboratories. Today, Unisensor serves a diverse client base that includes dairy processors, cooperatives, intake labs, veterinary practices, and confectionery producers. The product line is built for purpose and validated against strict regulatory frameworks worldwide such as EU MRLs, Codex, and local importer rules. DipSensor, a pocket-sized, no-pipette test, provides clear go-or-no-go results in under ten minutes, making it ideal for farm and field use. TwinSensor screens for two major antibiotic families simultaneously, supporting routine checks at intake. For plants requiring higher throughput, the award-winning Aurox automates incubation and reading in three minutes, feeding results directly into management systems. Extenso extends the detection panel to over 100 contaminants, helping cheese producers avoid costly fermentation failures, while Beadyplex enables multiplex screening across ten antibiotic groups in various food matrices. Together, these solutions embody Unisensor’s mission of simplifying workflows while ensuring regulatory compliance. By focusing on compatibility, the company ensures that its readers and software work seamlessly across multiple tests, reducing training time, simplifying maintenance, and unifying data. This design philosophy reduces costs while also enhancing traceability, enabling producers to meet the highest standards of compliance. Unisensor also addresses recurring consistency, speed, and traceability bottlenecks in testing by providing solutions that fit directly into existing workflows. Whether it is screening raw milk at intake, protecting starter cultures in cheese production, or maintaining lean staffing at plants, the company’s tests are engineered to streamline processes. Results are digitally logged with full identifiers, allowing teams to support audits, analyze trends, and connect seamlessly to ERP or LIMS systems. In practice, this translates to fewer disputes, reduced waste, and greater confidence in release decisions. Innovation remains central to the company’s growth. By keeping development cycles short and engaging directly with intake labs and plant QA teams, Unisensor rapidly adapts its products to evolving industry needs. Its scientific focus on immunoassay chemistry, multiplex formats, and automated reading enhances sensitivity, selectivity, and repeatability.
Frying Oil Purification
DuraFry Solutions International LLC is reshaping how restaurants manage their frying oil. With a patented powder and advanced filtration systems that are FDA- and NSF-approved, the company helps operators extend oil life while preserving the quality and consistency of every batch. What distinguishes DuraFry is the way it works alongside its customers. The team begins by assessing each kitchen’s challenges on-site, and then incorporates its technology into everyday operations in a way that fits existing workflows. Staff receive direct training on proper use and DuraFry continues to monitor results over time, ensuring improvements hold steady. This approach turns product adoption into a lasting partnership built on reliability and trust. The impact is immediate. Operators benefit from lower costs and fewer disruptions, with the confidence that every meal remains consistently fresh and safe. Central to this process is DuraFry’s proprietary powder, a blend of magnesium silicate and diatomaceous earth. These minerals work together to capture impurities and purify oil until it is nearly crystal clear. Extending oil life also lowers smoke levels, prevents residue buildup and minimizes the use of harsh cleaning chemicals, improving both food quality and working conditions. “Our aim is to help operators serve the best possible food safely and sustainably while reducing the wastage of oils,” says Michael Aoun, co-founder and CEO. Aoun’s perspective is grounded in experience. As a lifelong restaurateur, he ran a festival food operation across U.S. cities and often replaced oil on a daily basis. By the end of one summer, hundreds of discarded jugs were stacked in storage. That waste reflected a widespread problem in food service where vegetable oil rarely lasts beyond three days and beef tallow seldom beyond five without effective filtration. Relying on sight or smell left operators with high costs and unpredictable food quality. To solve this, Aoun joined forces with chemist Bill Trent in 2017 to create what became the patented DuraFry powder. The breakthrough transformed oil management, extending the lifespan of soy oil to 12–14 days and beef tallow to 22. Just as importantly, the approach brings consistency to frying, delivering food that tastes fresher for longer periods. Extending oil life is only half the story. Kitchens also need certainty about when oil should be replaced. To provide that assurance, DuraFry integrates a German-engineered Testo probe that measures total polar materials, the most reliable marker of oil degradation. In the European Union, oil above 25 percent TPM must be discarded as unsafe. While no such regulation exists in the U.S., it encourages operators to adopt these scientific benchmarks voluntarily, raising safety and quality standards across the board.
CXO INSIGHTS
A Good Food Regulatory Framework to Ensure Consumer Safety and Industry Innovation
Celia Martin, Director Regulatory Affairs & Health Ingredients Innovation Manager, Lallemand
A Disruptive Time for the Wine Industry
Nicolas PELLENC, Head of Wine Purchasing and Procurement, Les Grands Chais de France
Why Restaurant Technology Should Be Designed For People, Not Just Performance
Brianne (Lane) Harvey, Director of Process + IT, Apicii Hospitality
Digitalisation and Responsibility: Innovations for Animal Welfare, Sustainability and Integrity in the Meat Supply Chain
DR VERONIKA WEBER, CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, VION FOOD GROUP
How To Harness Our Food Travel Expertise To Create Healthy And Sustainable Choices For Travelling Customers
Verity Lawson, Group Sustainability Director, SSP Group
IN FOCUS
Optimizing Multi-Brand Strategies: The Essential Role of Cloud Kitchens in Europe
Cloud kitchen platforms help multi-brand food businesses reduce costs, centralise operations, scale faster, maintain consistency, and expand efficiently across Europe.
Europe's Food Industry: Embracing Automation for Quality and Sustainability
European food production lines advance through automation, traceability, and sustainability, delivering flexible, efficient manufacturing while meeting high-quality standards.
EDITORIAL
Cooling Innovation Meets Industry Leadership
Food and beverage businesses are navigating a demanding landscape where freshness, waste, energy use and supply resilience increasingly shape everyday decisions. This edition of Food and Beverage Tech Review Europe looks at how innovation and leadership are helping the industry respond to these pressures.
The issue spotlights NATfresh, which is taking a different approach to food cooling with a patented process that works on water molecules within and around food, cooling the entire mass uniformly in 15 minutes. The technology is designed to preserve moisture, texture, flavour, weight and nutritional value while using up to 80 per cent less energy than conventional systems. More than 1,000 products have gone through its trials, spanning produce, fruit, meat, fish, cheese, flowers and prepared meals. For its work, NATfresh has been named the Top Food Cooling Technology in Europe 2026.
The edition’s CXO perspectives bring a wider view of the challenges facing the industry. Nicolas Pellenc, Head of Wine Purchasing and Procurement at Les Grands Chais de France, examines the simultaneous decline in wine consumption and production, pointing to changing demand, weather uncertainty, rising costs and vineyard reductions. Julie Owst, Head of Sustainability at Bidfood UK, looks at governance, responsible sourcing and the challenge of turning sustainability ambitions into practical action. She also highlights the role of better product carbon-footprint data and cross functional collaboration.
Together, these perspectives reflect an industry that must turn complex pressures into practical decisions. Explore the stories for a closer look at the ideas and leadership shaping a more resilient and resource-conscious food and beverage sector.
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