Queen gives Bühler award for innovation
Uzwil SG – Bühler has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the innovation category. With this, the British monarchy gives recognition to a technology developed by Bühler that increases food safety and improves plastic recycling.
Bühler has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of innovation, as was reported in a press release. This year’s win is in recognition of Bühler’s unique camera technology used in sorting machines, developed by the UK subsidiary of the company from the St.GallenBodenseeArea.
Bühler’s camera technology is capable of recognizing the subtlest of color and shading contrasts in materials and foods, which are an indication of contamination. This means overall food safety can be improved. The technology is currently being used by food producers in Europe and the USA. They report a 10 percent increase in detection rates of foreign materials to 95 percent.
The Bühler camera technology can also be used in plastic processing to identify lower-grade or discolored polymers. As a result, higher grade recyclate can be achieved by plastic recyclers.
This is not the first time that Bühler has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the innovation category. “After my first visit to the factory I could see why they have been constant winners. They have such a high standard of skills and technology and are leaders in being good employers as well as producing such high-quality products,” says John Barber, representative of Her Majesty The Queen.
One of the criteria for a Queen’s Award is that the technology should not just be innovative but has to be scalable and commercially viable. It must also have resulted in a material improvement to a commercial process.