Dairy delivers at Fi Europe

Arla Food Ingredients has well and truly grown up as a semi-independent entity of its parent co-operative, Arla Foods amba. This year at FiEurope, the company was looking at women for its products. It has developed a range of ingredients and recipes to offer to all types of female consumer, ranging from sporty women, to pregnant women and older women. “Our theme is women, because women usually have most of the buying power in households, and as they can be more active, they need protein,” notes Nikolaj Knudsen of Arla.

It is not ignoring the smaller set, however. Knudsen says that the company’s new lactose plant for infant nutrition has been set up in conjunction with customers, in order to provide them with their requirements. “The capacity is increasing by 80 tonnes of lactose in total.”

Taste and mouthfeel are catered for as fractionation yields added creaminess and texture to products. “The solutions are also clean label,” he says. In fact, the company won an award at the show for its low-calorie weight management product, Nutrilac, in the category of best dairy innovation. The added whey protein offers satiety in a low calorie product, which is based on skimmed milk.

Over at Lycored, the spectrum was oranges, yellows and reds, with colouring based on its fungal betacarotene and tomato-based lycopene. In dairy, the colours are very stable, which is useful when adding to layered yogurts. The colours do not bleed into the white yogurt, adding to the attractiveness of the product. It is also freeze stable for ice cream use.

The company has its own cultivars for the plants, and they can also be positioned as having a functional benefit. In cheese, it can replace annatto colouring, particularly in hard cheeses such as double Gloucester. “There is a lot of interest right now in the US, as they move to more natural colours. This is a really active area for us,” says the Lycored spokeswoman. “It is a big volume market, and they are struggling to meet the demand for stable, natural colours.”

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