However , the local food and beverage sector has taken a knock over the ongoing COVID period , due to various lockdown rules , growing unemployment levels and constrained consumer spending , with the recent unrest also posing a threat to food security if these issues are not swiftly resolved .

“ Notwithstanding the local circumstances in July this year , South African organisations are also subject to the same challenges as their global counterparts ”, says Ferdie Fortuin , sales manager – general industry at Danfoss Drives South Africa . Food and beverage businesses worldwide are under immense pressure to meet the demands of both an increasingly competitive market

and a growing world population . The pandemic has certainly highlighted the need for greater agility , process efficiency and sustainability across the entire supply chain .

“ In order to move forward , businesses within this sector need to ask themselves the difficult questions , for example , will their operation be able to handle the 60 to 70 % increase in food production needed to meet population growth by 2050 ? Can they cope with a 27 % increase in confectionary products demand by 2025 , for instance ? Or , from a food security point of view , can they help eliminate the 33 % food loss that occurs during production , when more than 820 million people are going hungry globally ? Will the dairy chain specifically be able to cope with surging requirements , with a 35 % increase in milk demand forecasted by 2030 ? To put this into greater perspective , the International

Farm Comparison Network ’ s ( IPFN ) Dairy Outlook Report describes a future scenario where the average cow will need to produce more than 20 % more milk , putting pressure on dairy farms to increase output by over 50 %,” Fortuin explains .

In order to keep up with rapidly changing market dynamics and build greater resilience , transformative change is needed to allow food producers to scale up productivity , while at the same time bring down costs and improve efficiencies . All of this can be achieved by embracing the right technology .

INDUSTRY 4.0 INTELLIGENCE HELPS TO CHANGE CHALLENGES INTO OPPORTUNITIES In order to thrive in today ’ s world , food processing plants need to be able to scale up time and time again – quickly and

efficiently - and one way of successfully executing this is through the use of intelligent drives .

“ In the Industry 4.0 network , intelligent drives that feature smart sensors and predictive , preventative maintenance play a critical role ,” Fortuin states . “ This type of solution has proven to help cut 38 % of energy wasted , boost food production by 60 %, and eliminate 33 % of food loss during the production process .”

Intelligent drives can connect securely to other elements within the network , including PLCs , sensors and the cloud , and also embrace the Bring Your Own Device ( BYOD ) concept to connect wirelessly to smart devices .

While adding intelligence to a system can often be a complicated process , requiring additional sensors and components , intelligent drives already features smart builtin sensor technology . This means that they