Food Industry 1/2024

Food industry enterprises have been operating in dynamically changing external conditions for several years. The year 2022 and then 2023 was marked by turmoil on the global markets for agricultural and energy raw materials due to the war in Ukraine. In 2023, however, the global food economy has slowly started to move towards balance. The aim of the article is to assess the situation of the food industry and the results of Poland’s agri-food trade in 2023, i.e. in the conditions of high prices of raw materials and other production costs and increased imports of agri-food products from Ukraine. The study presents some production, financial and trade data for several months of 2023 against the background of changes taking place in the sector in the past period. Additionally, the events and regulatory changes that have or will have the greatest impact on the functioning of the food market in the near future were indicated. The analysis shows that the food processing sector in Poland turned out to be quite resistant to unfavorable external conditions resulting from operating in arapidly changing market and legal environment. However, maintaining good production and financial results and high export dynamics will be difficult because it will require food industry enterprises to develop new advantages that will allow them to compete effectively on selected markets.

KEYWORDS: food industry, production, economic and finance results, prices, foreign trade

The importance of sustainability in national food production was presented in this paper. The challenges of meeting climate targets and meeting obligations under the CSRD Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive were characterized. The global and domestic situation regarding sugar production was analyzed. A review of methods and analyses of the carbon footprint (CF) of sugar worldwide was determined. A methodology for CF analysis was developed taking into account the specifics of sugar production in Poland. The results of the research (on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Develoment) within the framework of the task “Analysis and methodology for measuring the carbon footprint for selected technologies and agri-food products produced by the domestic food industry” were discussed. The aim of work was to identify and develop methodological standards for measuring the carbon footprint (CF) for selected agri-food products, taking into account national production methods, allowing to obtain uniform systems of CF analysis for selected products. The analysis was conducted for three sugar factories.

KEYWORDS: carbon footprint, sugar production, greenhouse gas emissions

Fat, which is one of the components of meat and meat products, plays asignificant role in shaping the rheological characteristics as well as the texture and palatability of the finished product. However, in the meat industry there is atendency to produce meat products with low or reduced fat content, which is primarily related to consumer expectations. The purpose of the study was to find out consumers’ preferences regarding the fat content of meat preparations. The research was carried out using research tools in the form of aquestionnaire with 130 respondents. The results were compiled taking into account sociogeographic diversity. It was found that about 70% of respondents pay attention to the fat content of meat products. Respondents counted among the positive features of the presence of fat in meat and meat products the fact that this ingredient is asource of energy, while they considered as adisadvantage that it raises blood cholesterol levels. Themajority of respondents said they would opt for meat products with alower fat content, while believing that changing the amount of this ingredient differentiates the price of the finished product.

KEYWORDS: fat, meat products, consumer preferences

Food packaging is one of the major industries that has taken full advantage of modern scientific development. The food packaging market has been striving for advanced automation for along time. The advantages of the new trend are safety and efficiency. The packaging together with the packed product is often the so-called integrated product, this is due to the fact that most products cannot be present without packaging. Regardless of the type of food, this packaging is done using automated food packaging machines. Design solutions and quality of packaging machines determine the conditions of product packaging systems depending on the type of product. The article provides abrief overview of robotics and automation for the sustainable food and packaging industry and briefly describes robotic automation solutions in various supply chain operations and various unprocessed or minimally processed foods.

KEYWORDS: automation and robotics, food industry, robots, low-processed food

Food losses occur at the stage of raw material production (farms), transport and processing, while food waste occurs in trade, catering and households. The scale of food waste in Poland is high (5 million tons are thrown away every year, 60% of which in households). This requires various practices to limit the scale of this phenomenon. The paper presents the scale of involvement of trading, processing and catering enterprises in practices limiting food losses and waste. FOB reports from 2018-2022 were used. It was found that trading (9), manufacturing (7) and one catering company were involved in reducing food waste. The company most involved in reducing food waste was Carrefour Polska.

KEYWORDS: food losses and waste, commercial enterprises, production enterprises, reports of the Responsible Business Forum