We also have our weekly look at the global dairy markets, with Liam Fenton, from INTL FCStone.
DuPont launches YO-MIX PRIME
DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences has launched its DuPont YO-MIX PRIME cultures series globally.
The new solution helps yogurt manufacturers address the multiple challenges they are facing: offering ultimate mildness combined with premium texture, maintaining quality throughout challenging distribution channels, reducing the addition of sugar, saving formulation costs and enhancing process flexibility.
The company said the YO-MIX PRIME yogurt cultures were developed to create mildness and premium texture for consumers and provide a new level of indulgence in yogurt.
The cultures can help yogurt manufacturers save formulation costs by reducing the amount of skimmed-milk powder added to boost the yogurt texture, enable them to add less sugar while keeping the same sweetness perception and maintain product quality throughout challenging distribution channels with variations in storage temperature.
The new YO-MIX PRIME series’ advantages include a full pH control that also allows for more process flexibility – due to full control of the acidity before cooling and packaging. This process flexibility provides options for higher production output and less yogurt waste.
“We understand that yogurt manufacturers have a vision of how their ideal fermented dairy products will turn out, and sometimes the ingredients may hold them back,” said Morten Boesen, global product line manager for dairy cultures at DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences.
“Our versatile YO-MIX PRIME cultures can help our customers create a yogurt that is mild in taste while providing a great texture and mouth feel – the yogurt of their dreams, if you will.
“These cultures are really paving the way for the industry – meeting textural and taste desires of consumers, while offering opportunity to the manufacturers for lowering formulation costs and improving pH control,” he added.
The new YO-MIX PRIME series includes the PRIME 800 and PRIME 900 cultures designed for versatility – everything from drinkable yogurt to Greek yogurt.
Andonix works on employee safety during crisis
Andonix is a Detroit-based company that has created a SaaS platform with food manufacturers and three Fortune 500 automakers to empower front-line workers with upskill technology training tools.
With workplace safety an increasing concern, the company developed Safely, a digital tool that tracks the likelihood of an employee contracting COVID-19 at work by monitoring social distancing, physical touchpoints and more.
The product, for Canada, Mexico and the US, launches on May 1.
David Yanez, CEO of Andonix, spoke with DairyReporter about how typical business challenges for manufacturers have shifted due to the pandemic, the future of employee safety measures in the food processing sector, and how digital tools can help manufacturers of essential products keep their operations moving smoothly.
Yanez said the company is offering some of its services relevant to the coronavirus crisis free of charge to assist businesses.
Berglandmilch chooses DW Reusables’ beverage crate to become fully sustainable in packaging
Supported by environmental organization Greenpeace, Austrian milk producer Berglandmilch has replaced its one-way packaging by reusable glass bottles.
They contacted DW Reusables, formerly DS Smith Injection Moulded Products, for the design and production of a new crate.
Berglandmilch wants to prevent garbage with reusable bottles. The largest domestic milk processing company started offering milk in a one-liter returnable bottle and contacted DW Reusables to design a reusable crate for the transport of the bottles.
A beverage crate is purposely designed to be a part of the circular economy; beverage crates are durable and ensure a full 10-year warranty under rigorous manipulation procedures. When the crates finally reach their useful end-of-life they are reground and turned into new crates. This process can be repeated endlessly, decoupling packaging from raw material consumption.
Furthermore, beverage crates are a prime example of a ‘first to last mile’ secondary packaging solution, meaning the packaging that is used at the production lines, is also the packaging that the end-consumer takes home, and brings back to the store for reuse.
Rudi Raskin, vice president sales at DW Reusables said, “In the past few years many recycling initiatives were launched. However, the waste hierarchy goes reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order. Our beverage crates can be used for decades, reducing tons of one-way packaging waste. After their useful long lives, they are fully recyclable. For this reason, many of our customers are investing in reusable packaging and are switching back to reusable bottles and crates.”
The environmental protection organization Greenpeace provided Berglandmilch with know-how, noting that reusable bottles are the most environmentally friendly solution to reduce packaging waste for beverages.
Greenpeace said it sees reusables as the only solution to reduce packaging waste in beverages and to combat the plastic crisis.
Josef Braunshofer, managing director of Berglandmilch, said, “As the largest dairy in Austria, we want to become a pioneer in terms of climate protection. Supported by Greenpeace, we are therefore switching to reusable milk bottles this year. As a result, a single returnable bottle replaces eleven disposable glass bottles, so we only need a fraction of the same amount of packaging for the same amount of packaging.”
Mary Quicke writes open letter to Britain’s food lovers
As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly takes its toll on artisan food and drink in the UK, Mary Quicke MBE, managing director of cheese company Quicke’s, has written an open letter to all those in the country who value the independent companies that are under threat.
With supermarkets continuing to be the main beneficiaries of panic buying, Quicke is calling on shoppers to use the power of their money to protect the future of food and farming.
Having experienced the impact on artisan cheesemaking first-hand, the Devon-based clothbound cheddar-maker is encouraging consumers to search for the producers and retailers who are reaching out to consumers online.
She believes family meals, care packages and online dinner parties can play a vital role in supporting the small businesses that are so central to the UK’s food and drink identity, before they disappear forever.
In her letter, Quicke said that while supermarkets are selling lots of product, for artisan producers who sell little or nothing to supermarkets, the current situation is devastating.
“Many of the restaurants around the world that champion our products are closed. Many deli counters are closed. Our champions are furloughed or laid off. The distributors who drive sales through the food web are struggling,” the letter said.
“In the urgency to feed the one third of the world’s population that are currently locked down, the small and the artisan is getting left out. We risk losing the whole of the complex ecology of our artisan food system: just in cheese, that’s the amazing diversity of artisan cheesemakers that has developed over the last thirty years.”
Quicke noted that many restaurants and small food producers are moving online, although this doesn’t replace the volumes lost elsewhere.
“What to do? Please, find the great initiatives getting good food online,” Quicke said.
“Cook up great dishes and have an online dinner party. Give a gift of great food to the loved ones you can’t see face to face. Treat yourself and your family to a party night at home, with a rich British cheeseboard. Get to know the cheese mongers, food producers, butchers and chefs reaching out online.
“When this is all over, rejoice and get back out to the delis, food service and cheesemongers that support us. Together we can have our delicate food web survive to serve you and our world when this is all done.
“Be inspired by your connection to food and farming, the power you have, and the difference you make in the world.”
