The first GRAPAS conference and Award for Innovation run by Milling and Grain magazine was held 10 years ago in Köln, Germany.
The award was open to food processing innovations in the realm of flour, rice and pasta that were released on the market in the past two years. Nominations for the award that were shortlisted we all invited to speak about their innovation at the GRAPAS Conference - which formed part of the 2011 Victam event.
Previous winners
Above: Allen Willoughby General Manager of CPM Europe and Ing Paul Alderliefste
2011 - CPM Europe/Amsterdam, Roll Speed Measurement
CPM Europe/Amsterdamwere the first winners of the 'Award for Milling' at the 2011 Victam exhibition in Köln, Germany. The judges chose CPM due to the 'absolute relevance to the milling industry for their 'Roll Speed Measurement'.' CPM developed and tested this pellet mill roller speed measurement in combination with its famous automatic roller adjust type Lineator to provide additional information for pelleting management which it had not seen before.
See the coverage in Milling and Grain magazine here
2012 - FOSS - ProFossOnline Analysis
All the way back in January 2012, the second GRAPAS Awards event was held. It took place at the BITEC Centre in Bangkok, Thailand, as part of the Victam Asia Exhibition.
The winner this time around was FOSS, for their ProFossOnline Analysis. The judging panel believed it was the product that swept the pool of innovations coming from the grain milling industry and on display at the exhibition. 'The ProFoss appears to offer a significant improvement on previous online instrumentation. Although it uses well-proven NIR technology it offers great practical and functional advantages by virtue of its ability to continuously measure parameters of cereal grains and ground products without interruption to the product flow. This true in-line capability has very great potential.'
The runner up for 2012 was Bühler AG of Switzerland with their product, the Dolomit rollermill.
See the coverage in Milling and Grain here
Konstantin Anissimov electronics sales engineer (right) and Carl Braime group sales director
2014 - 4B Braime Elevator Components Hazardmon system
This year proved to be an interesting selection of products, with the panel of judges saying, "Although each of the products offered for judging provide benefits and advantages to one or more milling processes, most of the entries were the result of evolutionary improvements and are not in themselves truly revolutionary. We have given weighting to the criteria identified in the entry categories, in particular the benefits to the user in terms of safety, cost effectiveness and efficiency.
4B Braime Elevator Components took the trophy with their Hazardmon.com system, which took real time condition monitoring of equipment faults, including those which can be a source of dust explosion ignition, to a new level. A dust explosion remains one of the most hazardous risks in the milling and related grain handling industries. Dust explosions have been the cause of more injuries and fatalities than any other cause, their prevention is of paramound importance for safe and efficient operation of a plant handling grain or powdered material.
The 2014 Awards featured Bühler AG as a runner up with their highly commended product, the Combistoner. 'The Combistoner takes well proven concepts to a new level by providing equipment for higher (28t/h), and thus more cost effective, capacities. The recycled air option reduces the need for filtration with consequent further savings in energy as well as providing reduced operating and capital cost,' said the judges.
Morillon SAS also had a commended product with their Super SHG Hydrascrew, which met the need for a means to discharge bulk materials with poor flow characteristics. 'The large size of this new Hydrascrew model suits the trend towards bin dimensions of ever greater capacity to provide economies of scale. The hydraulic drive is an unusual and attractive feature since it is intrinsically safe in a dusty environment and can provide a high starting torque which is desirable in this application,' the judges commented.
See the coverage in Milling and Grain here
Representatives from Alapala left (Cagdas Ingin and Stefano Soldi) and Bühler right (Nicholas Trounce and colleague)
2015 - joint winners! - Rollermills by Alapala of Turkey and Bühler Group of Switzerland
The 2015 GRAPAS Awards were held in Cologne, Germany, in June. Alapala of Turkey and Bühler Group of Switzerland jointly shared the 2015 award.
There were also nine submissions that gained the prestigious status of 'Commended', as – according to the judges – there was 'an interesting selection of products' that year.
Both Alapala and Bühler submitted rollermill entries, which stood out as being the most significant entries, but it was not possible to rate one over the other. Each offers different merits but both are worthy contenders as winners, the panel explained.
As with most years, there was an extremely good response to the GRAPAS Award for Innovation in 2015. Winning the award gives a company a big boost for the product in the market place and is instrumental in getting it recognised.
See the full review for the 2015 award in Milling and Grain magazine here
2016 - Eye-Grain - iGrain and crop-protector
Held on March 29th, 2016 and in conjunction with FIAAP and Victam, the 2016 GRAPAS International Conference was once again organised by Perendale Publishers Limited.
The 2016 GRAPAS Awards winner was Denmark-based company, Eye-Grain Aps for their iGrain and crop-protector. The Crop-Protector specialised in developing and manufacturing technology for the post-harvest sector.
The judges had decided that, as ozone is highly oxidative and unstable, decomposing rapidly to oxygen without leaving residues is a 'highly attractive characteristic,' adding that, 'If the process proves to be practical in common use then it will constitute an innovative and valuable advance in protecting food grains.'
The runner up for 2016 was Agentis Innovations, who specialise in 'process optimisation,' for their M007 Real-Time In-Line Feed Reformulation.
By working alongside industrial and commercial businesses, they help to reduce operating costs, improve operating processes and capture the data necessary for 'today's advanced reporting requirements and real time information.'
Read the full report in Milling and Grain here
2018 - Too close to call
As we look back at the previous GRAPAS Award winners, we turn to 2018 where not one, but three applicants were made winners. Held March 27 in 2018, nine submissions were short-listed; two were specific products for the milling of cereals while the other seven were suitable also for wider applications in the handling of powdered and/or granular material. The three winners this year were Bühler, Geelen, and Henry Simon.
Atta Process with PesaMill from Bühler - Bühler’s submission took time to perfect, to achieve the right amount of starch and water absorption, but was successful in the end. It produces higher yield and one machine can do the work more efficiently than 20 sets of millstones, saving 10 percent energy over the traditional Chakki stone mill. This process promised to substantially improve on the way that Atta flour is produced by enabling the replacement of the less efficient and hygienic traditional stones for particle size reduction
Counterflow Electrical Dryer from Geelen - The Counterflow Electrical Dryer had benefits for petfood and aquafeed applications. The costs of drying for other industries was also an increasing concern and thus if it can be applied for the drying of grain before milling it was to be a welcomed application for the Indian subcontinent and East African region. The approach of a combined counterflow cooler with a heat pump seemed to be a trend-setting, complete-product to achieve more efficient production.
Henry Simon Rollermill - The ‘Henry Simon’ rollermill was the submission for the 2018 GRAPAS award which applied most specifically to the milling of cereal grains in the broadest sense. Although this ‘Henry Simon’ rollermill followed established principles in its fundamental design, the incorporation of advanced sensors and controls raised its operating potential to a new level.
See the full report in Milling and Grain here
2019 - Another three winners
The 2019 conference saw another three winners for the GRAPAS Awards: Petkus, Bühler, and Selis, with the best innovations for flour, rice and pasta processing technologies.
Petkus, OptoSelector 901t: The first winner was Petkus with their OptoSelector 901t, a unified system of analysis, combining the full-color RGB method and a special light transmission method based on the translucent features of the seeds. This was made possible through the use of a special lighting system, which is characterised by intensive, software controlled light source, exact focusing and perfect homogenisation of light across the entire working width of 900mm.
The second winner of 2019 was Bühler with their LumoVision, based on data-driven optical sorting technology that closely targets grains affected by Aspergillus Fungi, the cause of Aflatoxin contamination. With their new cloud-based system constantly monitoring the product flow and assessing risk, yield losses are reduced to almost zero, while the safety of the final product is assured.
Selis’ Dynamic Angular Positioning System (DAPS) was the third winner for the 2019 GRAPAS Awards. The system had brought a big solution to the important problems on the smooth roll passages and fine grooved roll passages. Due to the thermal expansion on the edges of the cylindrical grounded (no cambered) smooth rolls, caused by the heat generated by the bearings of the rolls, rolls become a concave shape. By means of angular positioning of two rolls, through the milling line on the rolls, milling gap between the rolls will be equal.
The runner up was Balaguer Rolls with their Optical Fluting Test 2.0. Following the success of the first Optical Fluting Test, a device that checks roll profiles by optical vision, this second generation had been specifically designed to help millers to easily measure and check roll profiles.
See the full report in Milling and Grain here
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