It's that time of year, the most wonderful time of year. The time for family, friends and, of course, food. Thanksgiving has come and gone, and so have the leftovers. Now we're in the throes of the holiday season with more gatherings every weekend.

Some people place such a high emphasis on quality that they hang their shingle on it, like Publican Quality Bread has in Chicago. Just bite into any of the signature artisan breads the bakery distributes to restaurants throughout the city and you'll have all the personal experience you need to define quality bread for yourself.

Chemicals and sanitation products are essential in the food industry, and recent product advancements help improve snack and bakery facility sanitation.

Optimized efficiency is a moving target. That's why terms like "continuous improvement" enter into discussions related to snack and bakery operations on a regular basis.

Customers of cutting, slicing and portioning equipment for snack and bakery products consider a wide range of parameters: They're hoping to find machinery that offers greater use of robots and automation, better sanitation, higher safety standards, faster speeds, wider and easier-to-clean blades, and reliable and flexible systems that can handle different sizes and shapes.

Advances in technology have changed how we record information and use technology for trending and tracking of food safety data. But with these advances come questions about the authenticity of the data. This is especially true when electronic data and signatures are being used to prove that your food safety plan’s preventive controls are being monitored and verified.

With better-for-you trends dominating virtually every food and beverage category, how do puffed and extruded snacks fare? As it turns out, this category is in a unique position to capitalize.

From a philosophical point of view, the notion of "quality" has formed a focus since the days of Aristotle. He saw quality as tied to the very nature of an object. Other thinkers through the years more prone to subjectivity brought relative