Decoding dairy - IFI FebMar10

Brits of a certain age remember being regularly exhorted to ‘Drinka Pinta Milka Day’ – a TV commercial that first aired in the 1950s. Not long previously – in 1948 – the British government enacted the Education Act, which saw schoolchildren receiving free milk, a privilege notoriously withdrawn by Margaret ‘Milk Snatcher’ Thatcher in 1971. The point is that, for a long time, milk was perceived to be a healthy food and a vital element of a healthy diet.

Fast forward several decades, and where are we? Well, we now count calories. We’re aware of transfats and cholesterol. We know all about gut health. And we routinely buy and consume foods that are not just better for us - they’re good for us, delivering specific health and wellness benefits. We’re also more adventurous, and looking for new tastes – and our children are fussier than ever about what they will and won’t eat.

Unsurprisingly, dairy-based products have changed – are changing. According to Innova Market Insights, there were more than 8,500 new product introductions (NPIs) in the worldwide dairy market between January and November last year. “Dairy product NPIs have been increasing steadily over the last few years,” says Innova market analyst Natalie Tremellen, “and will continue to do so with the growth of new, emerging markets.”

 

 

She continues: “New product trends include claims for energy/alertness and the emergence of dairy alternative products - for example, milk and yogurt products using quinoa, rice, oat, hemp and almond instead of cow’s milk. Products containing plant phytosterol ingredients and omega-3 for cholesterol reduction/heart health claims continue to emerge. Other emerging ingredients being used for dairy include Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), a weight management ingredient claiming to reduce body fat and L-Carnitine, which has been reported to metabolise fat into energy. Prebiotics are also being more readily applied to dairy for added fibre for digestive health claims. The dairy category has been really innovative in regard to flavours. New superfruit flavours, flower flavours, chilli, a wide variety of coffee varieties – such as macchiato, latte and espresso – are all being used, and flavour combinations are becoming more exotic.”

The drivers behind the reformulation of dairy products are, in essence, five. One is to make them healthier – either by eliminating or reducing undesirable characteristics, such as high calorie counts, or by adding ingredients designed to confer specific health benefits. A second is classical ‘range extension’ where manufacturers are looking to respond to increasingly adventurous consumer tastes. In both cases, the goal of this ‘premiumisation’ is a positive impact on the bottom line.

The third, unsurprisingly during a time when shopping budgets are tight and manufacturer margins even tighter, is cost reduction. A fourth driver acknowledges the varying requirements of different markets worldwide.

Finally, cleaner labelling continues to be a goal in the dairy market as in most others. The relative significance of these drivers depends on who you talk to.

 

 

“Currently, the main purpose of reformulation is cost reduction,” says Corinna Neuwöhner, principal technologist, market development dairy, National Starch Food Innovation, Europe. “Fluctuating milk prices and reduced consumer spending place a growing strain on manufacturers working with dairy ingredients. The pressure is on to produce high quality, innovative products that marry affordability with luxury. Worldwide milk shortages have subjected popular ingredients such as caseinates, skimmed milk powder and whey protein to price fluctuations.”

Laura Vega, vice president of global technical solutions at Edlong, sees a similar challenge in the persistent volatility of commodity prices.

“That can create sourcing problems,” she notes. “Cost saving is an issue that is of great importance to both consumers and food manufacturers. In the case of manufacturers, the impact is on the bottom line – and in the case of consumers, they’ll stop eating the foods they enjoy if they’re unaffordable. Food manufacturers recognise this and are looking to reformulation as a solution.”

“If reduced cost of manufacture is the goal, producers look at alternatives to ingredients that are already used or cheaper methods to produce that dairy product,” adds Toine Hendrickx, technical sales support manager at DMV International. “Of course, the intention is always that product quality in all its aspect should remain the same.”

“On the other hand,” he continues, “reformulating a product to make it healthier often goes along with a higher cost price - but also a margin increase. The need for both cost price reduction and giving products a ‘healthy touch’ have been two main drivers for reformulation of dairy products in the last decade.”

For Jens Bleiel, chief executive officer of Food for Health Ireland (FHI) – a partnership between four public research organisations and four of Ireland’s major dairy processing companies (Carbery, Dairygold, Glanbia and Kerry) – the emphasis is on health and added value. “By reformulating dairy products, we can make them healthier - reducing the salt and saturated fat content, while improving the taste and appeal of such products,” he says. “Moreover, to improve the public’s perception of milk as a source of essential health benefits, the dairy industry as a whole needs to continue to move forward through reformulation. Focusing on gaining a better understanding of the chemical and physical properties of milk will enable us to add value to traditional products - enabling us to offer further benefits, such as enhanced immunity, increased satiety, and reduced cholesterol and blood pressure.”

Paul O’Mahony, business development manager at Glanbia Nutritionals, places similar emphasis. “Using the latest in ingredient technology, formulators can capture the natural benefits of dairy products while reducing potential dietary challenges such as fat content,” he says. “An excellent example of successful reformulation is Supermilk, part of the Avonmore brand in Ireland. Enriched with extra calcium, folic acid and a range of important vitamins, Supermilk appeals to the health desires of consumers without compromising on taste.”

Of course, reformulation is not without its challenges and risks. For example, moving to sugar-free can change the pH and water activity in a product such as yoghurt to the extent that the risk of contamination – potentially botulism, for example – could rise considerably. Beyond this, the acidity of the product can be a key element in product preservation, but this may be overlooked at reformulation. Even changing the acidulant used can have consequences in this area. First and foremost among the requirements, therefore, is that the resulting reformulated product is demonstrably safe and meets all quality requirements – a point made forcefully by Hendrickx at DMV.

“It is unquestionably complex to provide a solution that is safe, healthy, tasty and doesn’t affect the flavour of the products,” notes Udi Alroy, marketing director at LycoRed. “Those are requirements we take very seriously – together with the critical need to preserve and extend shelf life.”

 

 

But assuming that product safety is assured, what are the other challenges? “One of the main risks,” points out Henry Hussell, marketing manager at Cargill Sweetness EMEA, “is ending up with a product that may provide an excellent health claim, but that doesn’t meet basic expectations of taste. We characterise this challenge as meeting traditional expectations of eating quality while also providing a genuine ‘better for you’ health claim, all within the context of a cost-effective manufacturing solution.”

Cargill demonstrated this approach at Fi Europe 2009 with an application of its Zerose erithrytol to achieve a 30% calorie reduction in yoghurt while maintaining its creaminess,

National Starch’s Neuwöhner sees things similarly. “A key challenge is to take advantage of ingredient replacement possibilities, either for cost saving, nutritional or clean labelling purposes, without sacrificing taste and texture - and thus consumer appeal,” she says. “We use proprietary sensory techniques to define and measure the desired texture and ensure that the reformulated product replicates this.”

 

 

“In the past, food developers have struggled to reformulate, particularly to reduce fat, without adversely affecting characteristics such as taste, texture and mouthfeel,” notes Paul O’Mahony at Glanbia. “Our product range is designed to support reformulation by boosting the nutritional profile of labelling without changing the organoleptic properties of finished products.”

There are considerations beyond safety and sensory characteristics, however. “When adding functionality to a dairy product through reformulation or the addition of a functional ingredient, the main challenges are ensuring the stability and bioavailability of the bioactive compounds, as well as focusing on consumer appeal,” says FHI’s Bleiel. “Our approach is to dedicate resources to investigating and developing the latest encapsulation technologies. These technologies will allow the integration of functional components of milk into the food matrix to maximise the physico-chemical, sensory properties of model foods and allow the delivery of health benefits.”

He adds: “In addition, the reformulation process may increase production costs to a level which outweighs the benefit to the end consumer - essentially pricing the product out of the market. With this in mind, FHI has a work package called ‘Scale up’ which looks at the two issues of taste and cost to help ensure the commercial success of the end products.”

Vega at Edlong identifies another challenge. “Manufacturers can reduce or replace more costly ingredients, like dairy commodities, with less expensive ingredients to reduce the overall formulating costs,” she says, “but, ironically, that can lead to a conflict with the desire for cleaner label products. Consumers are unquestionably becoming more label-aware – but reformulation to include real dairy products instead of less expensive ingredients can actually drive up formulating costs.”

Over at DMV, Hendrickx sees a similar issue. “Consumers perceive that products with extensive ingredient declarations are not healthy, and that perception is driving much of the work in dairy product reformulation,” he says. “To adjust and control the structural features of dairy products, a definite preference exists to achieve that with functional 100% dairy ingredients. A rule which is often adhered to by dairy product manufacturers is: only dairy ingredients for dairy products.”

With that in mind, the work being done by FHI may be of significance to the wider industry. FHI’s ‘Intelligent Milk Mining’ initiative brings together a number of diverse research tools including protein chemistry, enzyme hydrolysis, fermentation, microbiology and bioinformatics to systematically deconstruct milk. This innovative mix of technologies is, according to FHI, already generating a high quantity of new hydrolysates and peptides which may have the capacity to positively impact on human health. The bioactive elements of milk are being ‘mined’ by breaking the constituent proteins into peptides and hydrolysates using either enzymes or food-grade lactic acid bacteria. The resulting fractions are then identified and assessed for potential bioactivity and their mechanism of action. Additionally, FHI’s bioinformatics team is using the Bovine Genome to ‘intelligently’ search the milk for potential bioactives.

“The results from the mining team,” says Bleiel, “will then be transferred to additional programmes relating to process scale-up, encapsulation technology, formulation of food with the bioactives, human intervention, consumer and regulatory affairs and industry training or outreach.”

Bleiel is, it would appear, a man on a mission. “It’s vital that we promote dairy products and communicate their strong health profile,” he says. “To support this communication strategy, I’d like the industry to start talking about the concepts of ‘Food Minus’ and ‘Food Plus’ - Food Minus to reduce sugar, fats and other dairy components that don’t positively contribute to a product’s health benefits, and Food Plus to add functionality such as immunity, heart health, satiety and sustainable energy in a good-tasting food formulation concept. If the industry can communicate the good things it is doing, it will help move us to a position where dairy products can command a premium price.”

 

 

Reformulating dairy products is, then, both a business imperative and a business challenge. The complexities are such that food manufacturers and ingredient suppliers need to work closely together – a point made by Cargill’s Hussell. “It’s unlikely there will be one single significant development in dairy reformulation,” he says, “but the developments we see will share the same goal of delivering healthy enjoyment and value for the consumer. Every manufacturer’s goals are different, and that leads to the need for ingredient suppliers to offer a highly tailored approach. We believe those manufacturers will, increasingly, look to their ingredient sources to act not merely as suppliers but instead as true development partners.”