Only about 30 per cent of all food in China is processed, according to US government research last year, yet the industry is growing rapidly, with some expecting it to double from the CNY800 billion worth of output in 2000 to CNY1600 billion in 2010.
This growth is set to bring higher revenues and increased spending on capital, including technology that can improve efficiency.
One firm aiming to make an impact on production efficiency is Sweden's ABB group, a specialist in power and automation. The company recently moved its headquarters for robotics from the US to Shanghai, revealing the potential it sees in the Chinese market.
It also started manufacturing operations in China during 2005.
"The food industry is one of the fastest growing industries and therefore has huge potential for robotics," said Magnus Sjolin, until recently responsible for consumer industry clients worldwide.
"Robotics are not yet well known in the food industry but we have products that can do picking, packing and palletizing," he told AP-Foodtechnology.com.
On display was the world's fastest picking robot, the IRB 340 FlexPicker, capable of achieving 150 picks per minute. It can be used to pick up cookies and place them in trays, or pick up raw meat and place them in packaging, before packing them in boxes, all using the same software.
Another European group investing in China is Germany's Beumer, which opened a plant outside Shanghai six months ago and plans to employ 100 people there by the end of the year.
"Packing and palletizing is just at the beginning in China," said Wei Chen, vice manager of sales and marketing. "We want to educate the market."
The firm was promoting its stretch hooc at the exhibition, a faster and more cost-effective option to shrink film wrapping of goods. The technology draws an elastic film hood down over a loaded pallet, covering the entire surface in one go.
"It is already very successful and widely used in Europe but here, most companies use stretch wrapping or shrink film," said Chen.
"With our hood technology, you can cover 150 pallets in an hour, compared with about 90 for shrink film and up to 60 with stretch wrapping."
It also saves money, he added. "With wrapping you need three or four times more film, and with shrink film, you use more energy because it must be heated."
Although the film required for the machine is more expensive than stretch wrapping, it is comparable to shrink film, said Chen, and will help save costs in the long run. Beumer is currently talking with film makers about how to produce the right film.
The first stretch hooc machine sold in China will go to pharmaceuticals maker Bayer but Chen says it will also find favour with food makers.
"It is safer than shrink film as you don't need to use heat, something that can change the properties of foods," he explained.
The company's new plant in Shanghai is its first outside Germany to manufacture machines and service them directly. It allows Beumer to offer customers contracts in the local currency without the import duty.
"The Chinese market is very big. We're providing the same technology that we offer in Europe for a little cheaper than the German price," he said.
Other companies that have set up plants in China in recent months include Bosch, which also has ambitious expansion plans, and looks set to reap cost advantages from the move.
China imported packaging and processing machinery worth an estimated US$1 billion in 2003 and this figure is growing by around 20 per cent each year, according to AsiaInvest. But as foreign manufacturers set up base within the market, they will be able to leverage some advantage over those competitors still required to import into the country.
