Hormel Foods Corporation has announced it has purchased privately held Burke Corporation for approximately $110 million. The company anticipates annual net sales of $125 million, and expects the deal to be accretive to its fiscal 2008 earnings. Burke Corp. manufactures and markets pizza toppings and other fully cooked meat products primarily for restaurants, foodservice establishments and manufacturers of frozen entrees and appetizers. Product lines include traditional pizza meat toppings, meatballs, Mexican meat fillings and breakfast meats.

Reservations are being accepted for exhibit booth space at the 69th American Convention of Meat Processors & Suppliers’ Exhibition in Cincinnati, Ohio. The trade show and educational meeting for U.S., Canadian, and foreign operators of small and very small meat, poultry and food businesses will be held July 24-26, 2008 at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza and Duke Energy Center. The Suppliers’ Exhibition will be part of the three-day annual event sponsored by the American Association of Meat Processors. The Suppliers’ Exhibition in Exhibit Hall A of the Duke Energy Center will be open on July 24, 25 and 26, coordinated with, but not conflicting with, concurrent educational sessions.

Jennie-O Turkey Store is partnering with NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” for the second year as the show’s exclusive protein brand, offering healthy meal options for the 18 competitors in the popular weight loss series. “The Biggest Loser” drew 8 million viewers last season and this year will feature new host Alison Sweeney and the return of trainer Jillian Michaels. Jennie-O Turkey Store® Extra Lean Ground Turkey will be among the products prominently featured throughout the season.

Zip-Pak will showcase its newest innovation – the ZIP-PAK® SLIDER™ for large format bags – at PACK EXPO Las Vegas 2007, October 15-17, at booth C-1611. It is designed to enable brands featured in large format bags to provide consumer-preferred convenience, while maintaining package integrity. Zip-Pak will also highlight the newest member of its ZIP-PAK® Press-to-Close™ family of zipper technologies, the ZIP-PAK® DoubleZip. To ensure complete bag closure, the DoubleZip features two sets of interlocking profiles, and is designed to guide consumers’ fingers when closing a package.

FKI Logistex will showcase its palletizing technologies at PACK EXPO West in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 15-17. The 1440-square-foot FKI Logistex display at Booth C-3412 spotlights the company’s new, high-speed robotic palletizing solution, which uses jointed-arm robots capable of palletizing at rates of more than 100 cases per minute. The patent-pending FKI Logistex robotic solution will be demonstrated in an integrated conveyor loop at the exhibit.

EMEC celebrated its 25th anniversary under the warm summer starlit skies of central Italy in a gala event that included 350 employees, families, and representatives from around the globe on Saturday July 7, 2007. This gala event which included dinner, presentations, and the finest wine from across Italy was topped off with a dazzling music choreographed fireworks display Grande Finale. EMEC manufactures solenoid pumps and controllers.

The Jungheinrich Lift Truck Corporation is now making available a free, simple-to-use tool for calculating Total Cost of Ownership associated with various kinds of forklift over a five year period. Anyone can explore use of this TCO calculator by going to www.lift-truck-cost-tool.com. The tool considers average recent costs for maintenance and batteries, as well as current standard costs for electricity and fuel, by state.

PMMI announces the Packaging Industry Roundtable and Panel Discussion, hosted by PMMI’s Certified Trainer Program, for the Conference at PACK EXPO. The conference session will be at 11:00 a.m. on October 15, 2007 during PACK EXPO Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Convention Center. During the conference session, panelists will discuss the vital importance of establishing best practices for training. Additionally, they will unveil a Request for Proposal template that addresses training needs and communicates how training helps to reduce turn-over, downtime and inefficiency.

BioControl Systems Inc. announced that as of September 3, it has completed the acquisition of Raisio Diagnostics, a Finland-based manufacturer and supplier of industrial diagnostic tests used in food and beverage processing, commercial testing laboratories, and government applications. The acquisition allows BioControl to provide its global customer base with a broad range of validated, rapid detection methods across multiple technology formats.

VAMA Maschinenbau GmbH has opened an U.S. sales office and distribution warehouse covering North America, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands in the Boston, Mass., area. The warehouse will stock many of the standard sizes of vacuum packaging machines the company manufactures and many of the stock sizes in vacuum pouches, bags and films for the food industry. The new subsidiary will be named VAMA USA LLC and operated in Andover, Mass., by managers Rosario Zaccari, Edward Pollino and office manager Lisa Simmons.

CDC Software, a provider of industry-specific enterprise software applications and business services, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Milwaukee-based Catalyst International, a provider of supply chain execution solutions and services. With approximate annual revenues of $35 million, the acquisition of Catalyst is expected to be immediately accretive to CDC Software upon completion of the acquisition.

Hyster Company has announced that all its truck lines exceed 2007 federal EPA standards, and most meet the much more stringent 2010 CARB emissions standards. Hyster’s full line of electric trucks duplicate the performance of internal combustion engine trucks while reducing emissions and maintenance time.

Saf-T-Gard International, Inc. has released its new 2007-2008 product catalog. The new catalog is nearly double the size of the previous edition. The new Saf-T-Gard catalog is the first to combine the Voltgard electrical safety products and services with the traditional Saf-T-Gard offering. Other new product categories include Public Safety, addressing police, fire and first responders solutions.