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BRI Highlights
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July 2008 EBC Environmental Sustainability Symposium We are pleased to announce that the EBC will hold an environmental sustainability symposium in conjunction with BRI and the BBPA. The conference will be held in Stratford Upon Avon and also at CCFRA in the Cotswolds, UK. We have made a first call for abstracts in the following areas:
The deadline for abstracts (400 words) is the 1st August and the programme will be put together by the Scientific Committee: Gary Freeman (BRI) , Pjotr van Oeveren (Heineken), Andy Tighe (BBPA), John Brauer (EBC), Esko Pajunen (Carlsberg). If you would like to submit an abstract, or to register to receive programme updates, please go to www.bri-advantage.com and follow the symposium link. More details on the programme, venue and registration fees are also available on this site. Alternatively please feel free to contact Dr Caroline Walker directly for further information on EBCsustainability@bri-advantage.com Merger of BRI and CCFRA A General Meeting has been called to approve the new articles of BRI, this is scheduled for 26th August 12 o'clock at the IBD Headquarters (33 Clarges Street London W1J 7EE). If these are approved by Members then the merger will be effected by the 30th August. All Member Companies will receive formal notice of the meeting 21 days in advance of the date. Energy and Water Minimization Benchmarking Project The brewing industry is a large consumer of water and energy. Increasingly regulators are putting pressure on processors to reduce the amount of energy and water consumed. Technology decisions that will affect the plant performance for many years must be made today. With these pressures in mind, BRI have launched a project to benchmark water and energy usage in the brewery. The aim of the project is to help brewers identify where savings can be made, and where investment offers the best potential savings. Those who would like to participate in this project contact Gary Freeman (g.freeman@bri-advantage.com) BRI Offers a ‘Carbon Footprinting’ Service The interest in carbon labelling of products is increasing. However, calculating the carbon footprint of a product is complex and requires the integration and interpretation of diverse sets of data. In collaboration with carbon labelling experts at its merger partner CCFRA, BRI is providing this service to breweries. Those who are interested in Carbon Footprinting are asked to contact Gary Tucker at CCFRA (g.tucker@campden.co.uk) or Gary Freeman (g.freeman@bri-advantage.com) Product Recall and Risk Management BRI is collaborating with XL Insurance and Razor to offer product recall and risk management services for breweries. The emphasis of the insurance policy will not only be on assisting companies to avoid a product recall but also on providing assistance should an incident occur. BRI will provide technical expertise and auditing. XL Insurance Company Ltd offers tailor made risk management solutions for industrial and commercial businesses around the globe. The product recall underwriting team partners with specialist consultants to offer crisis management services as part of its product recall insurance cover. Razor is a communications consultancy specialising in risk and crisis management in the food and drink industries. It is part of the College Hill group with offices around the world. For more information please contact Gordon Jackson (g.jackson@bri-advantage.com) Deadline for Worldwide Energy Benchmarking The deadline for the third worldwide benchmarking project has been extended to the 29th August to allow large brewing groups more time to collect their data. Processing of the data will start on the 1st September and no further replies can be accepted after that date. Please send your completed questionnaires to g.jackson@bri-advantage.com or beerbenchmark2008@kwa.nl Energy and Water Minimisation Software BRI and KWA Business Consultants have developed the Energy Saver software which enables breweries to benchmark energy consumption at the process level against best practice values. This is a self-assessment programme. Companies can purchase the modules individually and add more modules at a later date. This software is now being implemented by a large brewing group for a number of plants. BRI and KWA also have software available to reduce water consumption and costs. This is again a self-assessment software package and shows where improvements can be achieved. The software has already been implemented by a major beverage group and is already operating in a large number of sites. For more information contact Gordon Jackson (g.jackson@bri-advantage.com) Come and Visit us at WBC! Our team of Karin Pawlowsky, Gary Freeman, Sam Walker and Richard Sharpe will be on the podium, standing by posters and present at our tabletop stand No. 516 at WBC Hawaii. We are looking forward to seeing you there and sharing a beer. April 2008 Members’ Food Safety Review This event has proved very popular with our members, and we were delighted that so many of our members were able to attend. If you are a Member and were unable to attend this year’s Members’ event you can obtain the proceedings by contacting Paula Mata (p.mata@bri-advantage.com).
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BRI @ WBC, Hawaii Every four years the ASBC, MBAA, BCOJ, EBC, and IBD come together for the World Brewing Congress and the BRI team will be there. BRI is delighted to have been asked to present on several topics: Yeast flocculation is a crucial phenomenon in brewing. However, premature yeast flocculation (PYF) is an undesirable occurrence and is thought to be related to malt quality. The results of research investigating the correlation between malting process parameters and the suppression or development of PYF in finished malt will be presented and discussed by David Griggs, our Development Director. Brand loyalty is of the utmost importance to the brewer and serving beer of consistently good quality is one of the key ways to attract this loyalty. Perhaps the greatest risk to beer quality is the use of microbiologically contaminated dispense equipment. We have used our simulated cellar/bar dispense system to carry out independent tests of the effectiveness of a number of new cleaning solutions that have emerged on the market over the last few years. Karin Pawlowsky will be presenting our findings. Both the malting and brewing processes are energy-intensive and large consumers of water. As well as charges for carbon dioxide release and fuel and water prices increasing, there is legislative and public pressure to act in a more sustainable fashion. Our Senior Engineer, Gary Freeman, will be taking part in a panel discussion on this topic of sustainability. Do please come along to hear what promises to be a stimulating debate. In addition, Gary will be presenting a poster highlighting the priorities for both the site engineer and strategic planner in developing processes in a suitable manner for the current commercial environment with reference to energy and water consumption. The brewing industry seeks to understand what makes one product more drinkable than another. However, traditional extended drinkability testing, where respondents are asked to consume relatively large quantities of beer, can raise concerns over ethics. At BRI we have been working to find a novel and ethical test whereby drinkability, and consumer preference, can be measured while asking respondents to remain within moderate daily drinking guidelines. Debbie Parker’s poster will present the results of this work. It is important for the maltster to be able to identify barley varieties, in a rapid and consistent manner. Traditional methods involve visual inspection or lengthy analysis, that do not lend themselves to assessing barley at intake. In collaboration with CCFRA, BRI have used Lab on a chip technology for barley and malt varietal identification and assessed its performance in comparison to traditional methods. The results of this work will be presented in a poster. BRI will also have a stand at this congress and Richard Sharpe will be on hand with the BRI team to answer your questions. If you are attending WBC and would like to discuss any specific item with our staff then please contact Richard Sharpe (r.sharpe@bri-advantage.com). Otherwise we look forward to meeting you at our stand for a beer and a chat. New BRI Member We are pleased to welcome one of the world's largest fuel producing and energy supplying companies, BP plc (formerly British Petroleum) as a new Member of BRI. Campden BRI Merger Rescheduled BRI and CCFRA (Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association) have agreed to reschedule the sig0.ning of their merger agreement till June. This decision has been taken because of pension related issues. Account has also to be taken of imminent changes in pension legislation, which come into force in April. Because of these pension matters it may be necessary to change the proposed merger structure, which will, in turn, require the approval of BRI’s Membership. In the meantime the two organisations continue to work closely together on technical and commercial initiatives. Membership User's Guide We are happy to announce the launch of our new Membership User’s Guide and Contact List, which all of our members will be receiving shortly. The User's Guide highlights the three core areas which make up the membership package: Food Safety Support, Information Services and Technical Consultancy. The User's Guide also outlines the services we provide in each area, along with instructions on how you can access them. Please note that you can now sign up to all our membership services, including our publications and databases, online if you visit our website (www.bri-advantage.com). Please contact Jessica Leclaire (j.leclaire@bri-advantage.com) if you would like to receive a pack of User's Guides. Corkwise @ BRI On 2nd April Corkwise, BRI’s wine analysis company, held the first in a series of free wine seminars. This event was very popular and included presentations on “Wine Taints”, as well as “Oak and Tannin Management”. We are now inviting visitors to the next seminar which will be on the 2nd July 08 and include presentations on “Ochratoxin & Pesticides” and “Bottle Fermented Sparkling Wine”. To register, please contact Geoff Taylor (geoff@corkwise.net). We would also like to invite you to visit our Corkwise team at our stand (number F4) at the London Wine Trade Fair and join us for a glass of champagne and to enter our raffle. Introduction to Brewing We have redesigned our popular “Introduction to Brewing Course” this year as a part of expanding and improving our range of training programmes. This course is an intensive two day programme developed for those who require a basic technical understanding of the malting and brewing process. The optional third day consists of hands-on training in our pilot brewery or maltings. The course is running 11-13th June and 3-5th November this year. For more information on our training courses, or to receive a copy of our new training brochure, please contact us at training@bri-advantage.com
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