The rapid rise in interest in origin chocolates, each with its own unique and delicate flavor palette, creates new possibilities for combinations between wine and chocolate. This was demonstrated in a large-scale combination project by Barry Callebaut, the world's leading manufacturer of high quality cocoa and chocolate products. With over 40 varieties in its assortment, Barry Callebaut is the absolute world authority on origin chocolates. In order to take full advantage of the subtle and surprising flavors of these tempting chocolates, harmonious or contrasting combinations were sought with classic wines from every corner of the world.

Symrise made a successful start to the new 2008 financial year despite a considerably more difficult economic environment: sales in the 1st quarter increased from &uro;331.2 million to &uro;338 million, an increase of 2.0%. On a local currency basis, this represents growth over the same quarter the previous year of 6.4 per cent. Adjusted for the effects of currency translation, earnings before interest, tax and amortisation of intangible assets (EBITA) increased by 6.2 per cent. At actual exchange rates, EBITA decreased from &uro;63 million to &uro;62 million, which corresponds to a reduction of 1.6 per cent.

DSM Nutritional Products announces a global price increase for all fat soluble vitamins. After recent price increases announced for Vitamin E and A the remaining fat soluble vitamins in the portfolio - K1, Natural Source Vitamin E, Mixed Tocopherols and Vitamin D3- will now also increase in price for all newly contracted business.

The increase is effective for all qualities of these vitamins marketed in the human nutrition and personal care industries and will amount to a minimum of 10%.

The price increase is necessary due to significantly higher costs of raw materials, energy and transportation and due to higher demand for DSM quality vitamins.

Symrise has acquired the Dairy Flavors, Savory Flavors, Sweet Flavors and Seasonings sectors of the Danish manufacturer Chr. Hansen. The anti-trust authorities approved the transaction on April 25, concluding Symrise's largest acquisition to date.

The acquisition allows Symrise to keep expanding its business in the US: over 80% of Christian Hansen's sales in the flavoring sector come from North America. This move will help Symrise continue to become one of the leading suppliers on the largest flavor market worldwide.

Symrise will benefit from much more thorough market coverage and be able to offer its clients an even broader product portfolio. The additional production capacity will dramatically improve Symrise's competitive ability and service in North America.

The two companies' client structures and core competences complement each other perfectly. In addition to its extensive knowledge of development and application technology, Chr. Hansen also works with technologies which are an excellent match for Symrise. In turn, Chr. Hansen's clients will profit from Symrise's global infrastructure, market knowledge and research expertise.

Ishida has mounted a legal challenge against the exhibiting of multihead weighers that infringe its patents at the Interpack trade fair in D¨sseldorf. The company recently filed an injunction with the Regional Court of Düsseldorf against a number of Chinese exhibitors.

The machines concerned are multihead weighers exhibited by the Chinese companies; High Dream, Jinyi, Saimo, Aochi, Kaidi, Jingwe, Multiweigh and Hi-Speed.

These companies have been prevented from exhibiting the infringing machines at Interpack. The multihead weighers have had to be removed from the stands or covered up immediately.

Ishida engineers discovered the illegal use of patented elements of Ishida multihead weighers as they walked around the various stands on the eve of the fair.

Paul Griffin, Marketing Director at Ishida Europe, said: "We have taken this action against the infringers to protect our technology and our ideas. In doing so, Ishida is helping to maintain quality standards in the packaging industry."

According to the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), sales worth around five Billion Euros are lost to product piracy every year in mechanical engineering in Germany alone.

An Ishida fresh food weigher at Tanfield Food in County Durham has helped to increase accuracy of key ingredients and nearly quadruple throughput for a pioneering range of gourmet convenience meals. Launched in 2005, the Look What We Found range is described as: "gourmet food for busy people," offering a delicious, hearty selection of ready dishes in meals, soups and pour-over sauces. All the recipes feature the finest ingredients from small-scale specialist producers, to enable consumers to enjoy and serve restaurant quality food at home in minutes. Uniquely, the freshly prepared dishes - such as wild rabbit with leek and elderflower sauce and camargue red rice and smoked haddock pottage with nadine potatoes and saffron - are packed in convenient, easy to store lightweight pouches.

Joint venture provides high-tech screening services for the personal care, nutraceuticals and pharma industries Symrise GmbH Co. KG and the Italian biotech company Cutech Srl have founded a highly specialized biotechnology joint venture called SCoutech as of April 1st, 2008. SCoutech offers screening services for cosmetic raw materials, cosmetic formulations, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. Using cell and tissue-based screening assays, SCoutech supports the development of effective products for skin and hair care. In this joint venture, Symrise and Cutech merge their expertise and offer their clients extensive screening and consulting services.

Providing the best solutions to produce safe food, safely processed worldwide Food contamination and worker safety issues in the fish processing plants are of ever increasing concern facing the industry. BAADER has addressed this issue by standing for a commitment to provide the best solutions for safe food, safely processed worldwide. According to Andy Miller, Managing Director of BAADER: "Fish is often processed in places that take advantage of cheap manual labor, unfortunately at the expense of compromising consumer food safety. Our nearly fully automated solutions remedy this problem by minimizing the amount of workers on the fish processing line, therefore minimizing the chance of contamination.

From Gutted Fish to Trimmed Fillet with Addition of BAADER 1900 BAADER offers complete processing solutions to the industry - from heading, filleting, trimming, final inspection to sizing and grading, thanks to integrating the BAADER 1900 into the line. This system is the key for most efficient pre-rigor and post-rigor processing. BAADER's Salmon Processing Line starts with precise gutting on the BAADER 142 Princess-Cut Gutting Machine, high yield heading on the BAADER 434, Filleting at BAADER 200, automatic transfer, the BAADER 988 automatic trimming with color and size recognition with BAADER 988, the BAADER 560 Final Inspection and the newly added BAADER 1900 for sizing and grading.

We are proud to introduce the new BAADER 59 whitefish skinner, debuting at the upcoming Seafood Processing Europe trade show in Brussels April 22-24. The machine was specially designed for cod, saithe and haddock, and is gentle enough to handle the soft meat of many other whitefish. The fish is fed tail first into the BAADER 59, then processes shallow skinning, producing the highest yield possible. Due to a special technique it is possible to ensure a perfect skinning result even at the tail tip. According to Andy Miller, Managing Director of BAADER: "Even soft product is skinned very gently. One special feature of this machine is that the skinned fillets leave the machine stretched out and separated from each other for easy inspection and further processing.

new SystemSURE Plus from Hygiena International makes them the supplier of choice for ATP hygiene monitoring systems to JohnsonDiversey. This rapid test system presents revolutionary technology in a simple, robust format that delivers best value and performance, and will be marketed by JohnsonDiversey Europe throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Hygiena International uses state-of-the-art technology in its brand new SystemSURE Plus, which provides simple, repeatable testing with robust, low maintenance instrumentation that delivers excellent value for small and large size operations in many areas of use.

Intralox will present proven solutions for a variety of packaging and case handling applications in booth #1706 at Expo Pack 2008, June 24-27, in Mexico City, Mexico. Since Intralox opened a new, Mexican entity in 2007, customers have found it easier than ever to do business with Intralox, receiving direct delivery of all in-stock materials within two weeks' time. At Expo Pack, Intralox will feature its new Activated Roller Belt™ (ARB) technology, which has proven to increase throughput, reduce line jams, and significantly reduce maintenance and downtime in case handling applications. Employing a smart, automated method for directing the movement of conveyed articles, ARB offers greater flexibility, reliability, and safety, along with other operational advantages, including: Singulation - Simple, low-cost solution with a small footprint reduces labor needs and increases sorter throughput Depalletizing/Descrambling - Compact, effective solution offers a small footprint and dramatic savings Switching - Unique, patented ARB™ technology offers even greater flexibility to accommodate a larger variety of case and packages Another booth focus will be Intralox's EZ Roller Retrofit™ system.

Tetra Pak, one of the world's leading food processing and packaging solutions providers, and Luxlait, the largest dairy in Luxemburg, have announced plans to invest more than &uro;100 million in a new state-of-the-art dairy, to support Luxlait's growing dairy business. In November 2007, Luxlait Association Agricole contracted Tetra Pak Processing Systems as a key partner in the development of its new, state-of-the-art greenfield dairy at Roost, near Bissen in Luxemburg - which will have a key role in supporting Luxlait's future dairy operations strategy. With a planned annual intake of 120 million litres of raw milk, this new facility will be a strategic replacement for Luxlait's existing production capacity.

Tetra Tebel Alfomatic cheddar equipment is a versatile, modular solution for automatic whey drainage, fusing, stretching, milling and salting of cheese curd - for cheddar and mozzarella cheese types. Alfomatic units are among the largest equipment in the Tetra Pak Processing Systems product portfolio, measuring at least 10 x 2 x 7 metres. Some are 20 metres long. Tetra Tebel Alfomatic equipment can handle a broad range of cheese types and process a wide variety of moisture and fat contents, at high volume with equal efficiency and uniformity. A single Tetra Tebel Alfomatic can treat 1,500 kilos to 16,000 of cheese curd per hour, depending on the cheese type.

Tara Dairies, and ingredients company LycoRed, both of Israel, took the top Cream Award in the Dairy Innovation Awards 2008, with YOU - a range of fortified dairy products targeting women 30-40 years old. The awards, held at the Grande Bretagne Hotel in Athens, Greece, were organized by Zenith International Publishing through its dairy innovation magazine. "We are very proud to receive the top dairy award for our new product line YOU. It reflects our mission to become the most innovative dairy company in Israel. In a short period we opened a completely new category of dairy products designed for women with a hectic lifestyle," says Nir Kanias, Deputy Marketing Manager at Tara Dairy.

Palsgaard is a specialist in the manufacture of emulsifiers, stabilizers and other specialized ingredients for the food industry. To complement this, we provide application services to help our customers make the step between idea and production as short as possible. Palsgaard has an internationally grounded knowledge base and breadth of experience, and are keen to share it. When you choose Palsgaard you get more than a product: you get a package that enhances your ideas and sharpens your competitive edge. Our initiatives are grounded in extensive knowledge, which both translates research findings into brand new products and gets channelled into the daily production flow at the customers.

For over 30 years, VIV Vreeland B.V. (VIV) has specialised in the production and processing of milkfat. During this period we have become one of the leading manufacturers in this field in Europe. Our anhydrous milkfat, butter oil and dairy blends are sold to manufacturers in the ice cream, chocolate and bakery industry all over the world. Under the brands 'Cow Brand' and 'Gold Medal' our pure butter ghee has gained a leading position in the Arab countries. We also carry a full range of bakery butter and concentrated butter for special use. Our modern, state-of-the-art factory is situated in the eastern part of The Netherlands.

With more than 100 years of experience with fruit and vegetables, SVZ International is an expert manufacturer and supplier of fruit and vegetable ingredients from natural raw materials. Our product range includes Individual Quick Frozen (IQF) fruit and vegetables, juice and juice concentrate, puree and concentrated puree, compounds and Verifruit® ingredients. FRUIT AND VEGETABLE JUICE AND JUICE CONCENTRATE SVZ is a leading producer of fruit and vegetable juice and juice concentrate. Our top quality is a result of using first-class raw materials. SVZ has the facilities, the knowledge and the experience to turn juice and juice concentrate into a multipurpose ingredient.

Superbee is one of Australia's foremost honey processing companies and has recently relocated to a brand new facility in Forbes, New South Wales, after the company was rescued from the receivers in 1989. The old factory was located in Tanawha, Queensland on the Sunshine Coast and used to also function as a free tourist attraction for school parties and weekend visitors, with a visitors centre and 'theme park'. The factory was relocated during February 2008 because of its success; the company needed additional space to meet the demand for its processed Australian honey product. Superbee sells to supermarkets and the foodservice industry and hopes to establish a retail outlet at the new factory for direct public sales.

Because of the demands of modern life, one of the great advantages is the availability of ready meals. Tanfield Food Company has taken this a stage further with its 'Look What We Found' range of convenience meals which are available in aseptic laminated pouches off the shelf with no need for a chiller display. The meals are hearty stews, casseroles and cassoulets with accoutrements, such as rice with chilli. The range also extends to hearty soups and pour-over sauces in the same packaging Each of the products was developed from a recipe in the Northeast of England by an artisan producer, the supplier of the organic/free range ingredients going into the meal.

The 2 Sisters Food Group (2SFG) is fast becoming a leading contender for the title of largest poultry processor in the UK. The Birmingham-based group made four acquisitions around the UK in June 2007, including Joseph Mitchell (Letham) of Forfar; Challenger Foods of Sunderland, where 400,000 chicken fillets per week are prepared for sandwich and pizza market; and the Tulip facility in Morecambe. The Challenger and Tulip facilities produce roast poultry for major retailers and also the foodservice market. In January 2008, 2 Sisters made a further acquisition, in the southwest, of the Lloyd Maunder Ltd facility in Willand, Devon, a major poultry product producer for major UK supermarkets.