Firmenich, together with Danone and Mars and through the Livelihoods Fund for Family Farming (Livelihoods 3F), invested in a large-scale, innovative vanilla farming model in Madagascar. Involving 3,000 vanilla producers, the project aims to increase farmer’s food security and triple their revenues, while providing high-quality, sustainable and fully traceable vanilla over a 10-year span.

Global Organics Ltd., certified organic and fair trade ingredients supplier, announced that its supply partner for organic cane sugar was awarded certification from Fair Trade USA. Global Organics also celebrated its 25^th anniversary this year.

For the third consecutive year, Hormel Foods presented its Spirit of Excellence Award to ProAmpac, one of the nation’s largest flexible packaging converters. During an awards celebration in June, ProAmpac celebrated this achievement at its Terrebonne, QC, Canada facility. ProAmpac is among 89 suppliers honored for contributing to Hormel’s continuous improvement process by maintaining an index rating score of 92 or better throughout 2016.

Toray Plastics now offers its comprehensive analytic testing of films, laminations and finished printed structures to all consumer packaged goods companies and converters.

Ingredion Inc. had four of its U.S. manufacturing facilities recognized by the Corn Refiners Association for achievements in workplace safety. Two facilities, in Bedford Park, Ill., and in Indianapolis, Ind., received the Incident Rate Excellence Award, the association’s highest award for safety achievement. It recognizes plants that have achieved a superior level of safety performance, with a total recordable incident rate of 1.0 or less, plus no employee lost workday cases and no workplace fatalities during 2016.

3M Food Safety received the silver Stevie Award in the New Product and Services category and subcategory of Health & Pharmaceuticals Product for the 3M Clean-Trace Hygiene Monitoring and Management System. 

Charles River Microbial Solutions partnered with Microbiologics, the leading provider of ready-to-use QC microorganisms, for quality control testing in the food, water and educational industries.

Berry Plastics Group Inc. changed its name to Berry Global Group Inc. Common shares of the Company stock will continue to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BERY. In addition, Berry Plastics Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Berry Plastics Group Inc., changed its name to Berry Global Inc.

Sales and acquisitions

Global carotenoid leader Lycored sold its nutrient premix business to U.S. food ingredients supplier Prinova. As part of the transaction all the company’s premix-related activities and assets – which are based mainly in the UK and China – will be transferred to Prinova. The divestment is another step in executing the business strategy Lycored announced two years ago. It will allow the company to focus on its core activities – carotenoids for food and health, tomato-based products and micro-encapsulated ingredients.

MPI Label Systems acquired Label Gallery Inc., a leading flexographic and digital printer in Norwich, N.Y. Label Gallery specializes in the food, pharmaceutical and wine/spirits industries. 

Meyer Industries Inc., a leader in designing, engineering and manufacturing of vibratory conveying, bulk material handling and food processing equipment, was acquired by Precision Inc., an international employee-owned heavy industry conveyor, pulley and idler manufacturer based out of Pella, Iowa.

Facility expansions

First Choice Ingredients (FCI), one of the largest dairy ingredient companies in the United States, opened a new full-scale production facility this year. The plant has doubled FCI’s footprint and has the capacity to produce over 10 million pounds of dairy ingredients annually.

Berner Food and Beverage LLC, a leading private label and contract manufacturing supplier of food and beverage products, said its current plant expansion project will allow the company to offer additional beverage manufacturing capabilities and further expand the footprint of its retorted beverage lines in its new 290,000 square-foot facility.

Global leader in flavors and fragrances, Symrise AG, unveiled its new Asia-Pacific Flavor Innovation and Technology Centre. The Centre marks the completion of the company’s over 30 € million expansion of its regional headquarters in Singapore, which aims to boost local food manufacturing capabilities and to contribute to Singapore's vision of becoming Asia’s regional food & nutrition hub.