Emerging Opportunities For Dairy Ingredients Top Agenda Of Two-Day Cal Poly Symposium
The symposium, which took place February 24-25 at The Cliffs beach resort, brought together nearly 100 academic and industry leaders to share information and technology. Speakers and attendees came from Canada, China, Denmark, France and the United States. Companies represented included California Dairies, Foss North America, General Mills-Yoplait, Hilmar Cheese Company, Kraft Foods, Leprino Foods, Proliant, The Minute Maid Company, and Westfarm Foods.
"Concentrated and dried dairy ingredients are at the forefront of product innovation, especially for functional foods," said Dr. Phillip Tong, professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) and the program's organizer. "The caliber of speakers and attendees at this year's program reflects the importance of these ingredients to the food industry as a whole."
Symposium activities kicked off Monday, February 24th with a morning of presentations by experts from such organizations as Advitech Solutions, 3A Consulting, and U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC). Speakers covered a variety of topics from recent research on the health benefits of dairy peptides to the potential for marketing permeate.
Bill Ahlem, chair of the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board, began the program with welcoming remarks and spoke of the importance of innovation and application. This was followed by an overview of dry milk and whey products by Dr. Phillip Tong.
Veronique LaGrange, director of ingredients business development for USDEC, provided an assessment of international dairy market development activities, including needs and opportunities. According to LaGrange, key international sectors include infant formula, beverages (dairy and other), and "functional" products. She highlighted infant formulas from Korea and Japan with added hydrolyzed whey proteins to make more like breast milk, as well as Lactoferrin and Lactulose for intestinal health and increased immunity. She also showed a Chinese product made with bovine colostrum that was labeled as a nutritional liquid for toddlers and adults. In dairy beverages, LaGrange identified such trends as combining milk with fruit juices or adding milk minerals, whey proteins, or peptides. Functional trends include creating products with longevity, wellness, performance, and therapeutic properties including flavored milk with bioactive peptides to lower blood pressure, ice cocoa milk drink with polyphenols to reduce the risk of cancer, and weight loss tablets with glycomacropeptides. According to LaGrange, products aimed at improving bone and tooth health and those containing pre- and probiotics are also increasing on the market as are performance or sports products available in a variety of forms from jelly drinks with whey protein to sport milk candy.
During a session on new and emerging opportunities, Dr. Eric Lamiot from Advitech Solutions spoke on dairy peptide health ingredients. He explained how the proteins found in both milk and whey can be hydrolyzed to form peptides that can be concentrated and purified. These purified peptides can be used commercially as ingredients offering various health benefits such as helping to decrease anxiety, lower blood pressure, aid in mineral adsorption, regulate appetite, and assist in liver detoxification. According to Lamiot, drawbacks to using these peptides in the pharmaceutical market include the long time to market and high investments for pre-clinical studies. He stated that there is a large market for functional foods with high possible volumes, but health claims are limited and peptides can have a negative impact on taste. He expressed a belief that the nutraceutical market may be a good area for these ingredients due to short time to market and high interest from consumers for health supplements.
Tage Affertsholt of 3A Consulting in Denmark covered marketing opportunities for permeate. He reported that the United States is the largest whey producing country, generating 36,000 tons of whey in 2001 alone. Of that whey, 80% was utilized as permeate (11,520 tons), with whey powder at 14,400 tons and other uses at 2,880 tons. This permeate has been used directly in beverages and animal feed, or processed for lactose production, conversion, and for bioconversion. Permeate powder and animal feed, together with lactose, represents the largest market potential for processing large quantities of permeate. Applications for beverage production also represents significant potential. Conversion of lactose in permeate to specialized sweeteners provides an opportunity to produce high value added products, but only limited volumes of permeate can be utilized. Affertsholt concluded with the concept that using bioconversion products such as alcohol and lactic acid for biodegradable packaging materials have the greatest potential for utilization of large permeate quantities.
Afternoon sessions focused on improving the quality of dairy ingredients and included a presentation on the effects of heat on whey-derived ingredients by Dr. Jean Louis Maubois, director of the Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique in France. Maubois began with an explanation of the two types of whey – classical cheese and casein, and whey obtained from membrane filtered raw whole or skim milk. He also covered the heat-induced changes (reactions) in lactose, b-lactoglobulin, a-lactoalbumin, some of the more minor proteins, and mineral salts as well as reviewing the technological history of whey protein concentrate and whey protein isolate before they were submitted to fat separation, pasteurization, ultrafiltration, and the addition of citrate. According to Maubois, extended shelf processes that are based on classical heat treatments will induce more or less denaturation according to the heating history and whey protein content. These treatments are necessary for microbial destruction. While literature exists describing the effects of heat on particular products, there is a lack of information on methods that can describe the heating history of the product. He concluded by saying that whey and purification by UF in controlled conditions and equipment will be the ideal starting material for knowing accurately the effects of heat.
The second day's programs continued the focus on food ingredients, including a session on lessons learned from the soy industry as well as processing technology and dairy ingredient applications.
Dr. Arun Kilara of Kilara Worldwide opened with lessons the dairy industry can learn from the soy industry. Kilara addressed a number of key points for soy's success including the fact that the soy industry is consolidated with few key players, the economics are favorable (cost per pound of protein) compared with dairy protein, and soy has been able to advertise a number of health claims, which have helped the sales of soy protein products. Additionally, the compounded annual growth rate and profitability of soy foods are lucrative, even though the overall markets are relatively small. She was followed by Dr. Munir Cheryan of the University of Illinois who covered the use of membrane technology in the production of value-added soy proteins.
In a presentation on sensory analysis and flavor stability of skim and whole milk powder, Dr. Mary Anne Drake of North Carolina State University discussed the importance of flavor and its impact on customer preference. According to her research, sensory analysis is the ultimate measurement, but instrumental analysis also is important. Drake looked at both fresh and stored samples of skim and whole milk powders and how different heat treatments affected the sensory aspects and the development of a language that gave both qualitative and quantitative descriptions for the aroma-active compounds in the powders. Skim milk powder results showed that heat generated compounds increased with intensities of heat treatments. Odor intensities of some compounds were higher in stored samples while other compounds decreased. It was found that some new odorants contributed to stored SMP flavor. Results for whole milk powder showed that fat generated compounds play an increased role in desirable and undesirable flavors. Odor intensities of some compounds were changed in stored (off-flavored) samples and fat oxidation compounds are primary sources of off-flavors. Drake concluded her talk with a look at practical applications and implications including using sensory profiles to predict storage stability, sorting or directing products for particular end-product users and other applications.
The last speaker before lunch was Dr. Rafael Jimenez from the Dairy Products Technology Center at Cal Poly who spoke on high value fractions from buttermilk. He summarized his research focusing on milk fat globule membrane polar lipids, and how best to retain them. According to Jimenez, buttermilk is a co-product of butter production and contains the milk fat globule membrane. Using a two-part process of microfiltration and supercritical fluid extraction, we can fractionate buttermilk and concentrate biological lipid messengers. These messengers have important applications in molecular research and potential dietary and health applications. He stated that reconstituted buttermilk contains polar MFGM lipids differently than fresh and that cold process retained MFGM polar lipids better than a high temperature process. He went on to show the point in diafiltration that showed the maximum concentration of lipids and proteins. In a second phase of the research, he demonstrated the value of refining products obtained from microfiltration of buttermilk with supercritical fluid extraction. Supercritical CO2 was very efficient in removing saturated lipids from the phospholipid-protein product retained by the microfiltration membrane. Combining these two processes demonstrate a great potential for developing novel products.
The final session of the symposium focused on technologies and dairy ingredient applications and included a talk by Professor Isabelle Sodini from the Institute National Agronomique in Grignon-Paris on the utilization of whey protein concentrate in cultured dairy products. Her research addressed the addition of four dairy ingredients – buttermilk powder, milk retentate, caseinate, and whey protein concentrate – and their effect on yogurt texture. Sodini reported that buttermilk powder and milk retentate had the same ability to texturize yogurt as skim milk powder with a comparable level of protein. In comparison, caseinate had better viscosity, rougher gel and a stronger, more open network due to the higher degree of casein micelle fusion (lower whey protein/casein ration). Whey protein concentrate, in turn, had contradictory results showing a strong diversity of their texturing ability in a yogurt application. A blend of dairy powders showed a synergistic effect on the viscosity.
A total of 18 speaker presentations were made during the two-day event. For information about presentations not included here, contact Laurie Jacobson at (805) 756-6097 or ljacobso@calpoly.edu.
The Cal Poly Concentrated and Dried Dairy Ingredients Symposium is an annual event sponsored by the California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF), Dairy Management, Inc., and U.S. Dairy Export Council. For details of past and future programs, see www.calpoly.edu/~dptc.
Established in 1986, the Dairy Products Technology Center (DPTC) is a program within the College of Agriculture at California Polytechnic State University, which conducts education, research, and outreach activities to provide solutions to help manage risk, facilitate innovation, and defend equity in the dairy foods industry and related business sectors. More information is available at www.calpoly.edu/~dptc .
The California Dairy Research Foundation is a non-profit corporation that manages the research investments of the California dairy industry in the areas of basic and applied dairy product research, nutrition, dairy herd health, and food safety. For information about CDRF and the research it supports, visit www.cdrf.org.