Plant-based food colour supplier GNT has been awarded an EcoVadis Platinum medal, placing the company among the top 1% of businesses in the food manufacturing industry for sustainability performance. The recognition follows consecutive Silver and Gold medals in previous assessment periods.
BEHN + BATES has introduced the INTEGRA IV series, a valve bag packing system designed to address hygiene and efficiency requirements in food manufacturing facilities. The German equipment manufacturer is positioning the system as an integrated solution for producers handling flour, starch, cocoa, sugar and other food products.
Israeli packaging specialist StePacPPC has developed a modified atmosphere/modified humidity (MA/MH) packaging solution specifically designed to preserve the freshness and appearance of pitaya (dragon fruit) during extended ocean freight from South America to global markets.
Nutriswiss AG, a leading Swiss specialist in sourcing and processing high-quality vegetable oils and fats, has set an ambitious target to achieve climate-neutral production within the next six years. This move highlights the growing trend in the food industry towards sustainable manufacturing practices.
The second annual MISTA Growth Hack brings together food-tech start-ups and global food companies to focus on innovating biomass fermentation, with the aim of addressing future nutritional and sustainability challenges.
Innovia Films has introduced a novel semi-cavitated film designed for in-mould labelling of large format containers, offering potential benefits for food packaging manufacturers.
Amcor’s new Clear-Tite 40 shrink bag offers a 19% weight reduction compared to standard 50µ bags, potentially lowering EPR fees for meat processors while maintaining product freshness and visual appeal.
In a significant development for the food industry, the non-profit organisation Foundation Earth has been integrated into EIT Food, the world’s largest food innovation community. This merger aims to establish internationally recognised standards for assessing the environmental impact of food products, a crucial step towards a more sustainable food system.
The next wave of technological progress to sustain the world’s fast-growing global population will capitalize on artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve the precision and sustainability of farming techniques.
AI, IoT, connected services and autonomous systems together enable farmers to make decisions at the level of a single square metre or individual plant or animal, rather than entire fields or all livestock. This precision allows well-informed interventions that ultimately improve agricultural sustainability by helping farmers produce more with less.
A new International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Focus Group dedicated to ‘AI and IoT for digital agriculture’ [1] will examine emerging cyber-physical systems as groundwork for standardization to stimulate their deployment for agriculture worldwide.
“The projection that our planet will host 9.7 billion people by 2050 necessitates significant technological progress to sustain so many lives,” said Houlin Zhao, ITU Secretary-General. “This new focus group is the beginning of a global drive to ensure equitable access to the new capabilities emerging in agriculture with advances in digital technology.”
Collaboration with FAO
The focus group will work in close collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which mobilizes international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security.
Under the group’s purview will be new capabilities to discern complex patterns from a growing volume of agricultural and geospatial data; improve the acquisition, handling, and analysis of these data; enable effective decision-making; and guide interventions to optimize agricultural production processes.
Dejan Jakovljevic, Chief Information Officer and Director of FAO’s Digitalization and Informatics Division, said: “New digital capabilities offer us a unique and immediate opportunity to transform food systems and accelerate impact towards zero hunger. The new focus group will significantly contribute towards these efforts, bringing together AI and IoT as key enablers behind new capabilities for digital agriculture.”
The envisaged study aims to support global progress in areas such as precision farming, predictive analytics for smart farming, the optimization of cultivable acreage, remote cattle monitoring and management, agricultural robotics, and greenhouse automation.
The study will pay particular attention to the needs of developing countries where people’s livelihoods are most reliant on agriculture. Those are also the countries where digital solutions can provide the greatest gains in agricultural sustainability and resilience.
Focused on smart communities
The focus group will report to ITU’s standardization expert group for ‘IoT and smart cities and communities’, ITU-T Study Group 20 [2].
The new focus group is open to all interested parties.
It comes alongside the establishment of the new Correspondence Group for ‘Artificial Intelligence of Things’ (also under ITU-T Study Group 20), aimed at developing guidelines for future standardization work related to IoT and smart cities and communities.
ITU-T Study Group 20 has also reached first-stage approval (‘consent’) of the LoRaWAN specification as an ITU standard. This transposition of the low-power protocol for wide area networks into a new ITU standard intends to support the protocol’s adoption globally.
[1] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/ai4a/Pages/default.aspx
[2] https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/about/groups/Pages/sg20.aspx
Simone Boitelle, Director Global Corporate Affairs FrieslandCampina (left), Yann-Gaël Rio, Danone’s Global Vice-President for Nature & Agriculture (centre) and member dairy farmer Edwin Daatselaar (right)
A three year collaboration between FrieslandCampina and Danone has led to more than 17% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (measured from 2015 to 2020). This reduction has been realised through FrieslandCampina’s dairy farmers implementing sustainable farming practices and green energy projects. This is applied for dairy ingredients specifically provided to Danone. FrieslandCampina used the Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment to track progress resulting from the sustainable farming practices. This extensive monitoring tool is used by almost 10,000 FrieslandCampina member dairy farms and gives farm specific insights, such as the size of their carbon footprint.
Committed to making our food system more sustainable, FrieslandCampina and Danone are both running extensive sustainability programmes to reduce their environmental impact. Both companies have committed to reaching net zero, as one of their climate goals, as well as improving soil health and biodiversity. One of the ways to achieve these goals is through regenerative agriculture practices. FrieslandCampina and Danone both want to support farmers on the journey towards a sustainable future, which led to this partnership.
Simone Boitelle, Director Global Corporate Affairs FrieslandCampina noted: “For over 150 years already, FrieslandCampina believes in cooperation to achieve great results. And this collaboration is yet another great example. Supporting farmers to produce milk in balance with nature, is the key to a more sustainable, climate neutral and nature positive future. I am very proud of our member farmers who make this possible, they deserve the stage for these strong results!”
Yann-Gaël Rio, Danone’s Global Vice-President for Nature & Agriculture, added: “Sustainable dairy farming is a key priority in Danone’s journey to achieving net zero emissions. This partnership demonstrates that by combining our expertise, we can accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices to help reduce the climate impact of dairy farming. While this is a great step, there is more to be done, and we are looking forward to supporting more farmers in their transition by extending this partnership for an additional three years.”
Depending on the nature of their farm, dairy farmers can take different measures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The impacts from the measures implemented were tracked through the Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment. Some examples of the measures taken are:
The positive results from this partnership encouraged Danone and FrieslandCampina to extend the collaboration for an additional three years. The two companies will continue their efforts together with the goal to reduce GHG emissions resulting from the production of ingredients sourced from FrieslandCampina by over 7%. This would result in almost a 25% GHG emission reduction over the course of the multi-year collaboration.
In the coming years, FrieslandCampina and Danone say they will continue their joint efforts to create innovative solutions to scale up and accelerate the transition to regenerative farming.
June / July 2026
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