Arla Foods Ingredients is demonstrating how acid whey can be transformed into a valuable raw material for high-protein dairy products with an ‘upcycled’ positioning.
The new ‘Upcycle Your Whey to Value’ concept offers a solution to a long-standing sustainability challenge for the dairy industry. Two thirds of the milk used in the production of Greek yoghurt and other strained fermented dairy products ends up as waste.
Disposing of acid whey, the main side-stream from the process, is both expensive and associated with environmental risk. However it is nutrient-rich and, with the right expertise, can be transformed into a nutritious ingredient, opening up new opportunities for innovative food and beverage products.
Now Arla Foods Ingredients has created three new ambient dairy concepts that demonstrate the potential of acid whey to be used in products with an ‘upcycled’ positioning:
- An 8 % protein drinking yoghurt with pineapple / coconut flavours
- An 8 % protein creamy dessert with pineapple / coconut flavours
- An 8 % protein beverage with strawberry flavour.
In each of the recipes, acid whey, which accounts for between 50 % and 73 % of the full product, is combined with ingredients from the Nutrilac® ProteinBoost range of patented microparticulated whey proteins.
As well as offering a mild dairy taste and smooth and creamy mouthfeel, the recipes are all suitable for processing on a standard dairy line, and offer good viscosity control and stability through shelf life.
The new concept is designed to help manufacturers meet a growing market need, with climate change and waste increasingly top of mind for dairy consumers. Over eight in ten are aware of sustainability issues in the category, and 20 % are actively changing their behaviour when buying dairy products.1
Claus Bukbjerg Andersen, Senior Dairy Category Manager at Arla Foods Ingredients, said: “The use of upcycled side-streams can help brands reduce waste and increase their appeal to climate-conscious consumers. Additionally, acid whey is nutrient-rich and in combination with the right ingredients can be used to create exciting new products that offer indulgence as well as nutritional value. Allowing all the goodness of milk to be kept in the food chain is good for the planet, good for consumers and good for manufacturers, who can position products as upcycled, in line with a growing dairy industry trend.”
Arla Foods Ingredients will showcase the ‘Upcycle Your Whey to Value’ concept at Gulfood Manufacturing in Dubai (November 5th to 7th). Exhibiting at Stand R-K3 in Shk Rashid Hall, it will also demonstrate how Nutrilac® ProteinBoost can be used to overcome technical challenges in high-protein dairy production, and highlight solutions for high-protein cheese.
1New Nutrition Business, 10 Key Trends, 2023
Leveraging Brightseed’s artificial intelligence, Ocean Spray will unlock new compounds inside the Cranberry, powering next generation health innovation in the superfruit’s healthy product line
Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., the agricultural cooperative owned by more than 700 farmer families, and Brightseed, an A.I.-led biosciences company recognized as a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, announced an agreement to leverage Brightseed’s A.I., Forager®, to profile the compounds in cranberries and surface new connections between cranberries and human health. The collaboration with Brightseed puts Ocean Spray on the path to having the world’s most comprehensive nutritional profile of the cranberry — including the cranberries’ previously unknown bioactive compounds and potential health benefits.
“Similar to how different grapes produce different wine varietals, each cranberry strain can be extraordinarily diverse in their phytochemical composition, resulting in different colours, flavour nuances, size, and a trove of health-promoting bioactive compounds,” said Katy Galle, Senior Vice President of Research & Development at Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. “Our agreement with Brightseed puts us on a path to profiling our cranberry varieties and understanding their health potential like never before. The insights from this agreement will support us as we continue to innovate healthy products for our consumers, in addition to informing how we grow, separate, and treat our cranberries to optimize for target health benefits and sustainability.”
Cranberries have long been considered a superfruit and are celebrated as a rich source of polyphenols with high antioxidant activity. “Some of the cranberry’s potent health benefits are well-known, including their impact on bladder and kidney function. With over 100 cranberry varieties, the vast majority of compounds in cranberries have never been explored for their impact in the human body, however, they carry enormous potential to open up new dimensions for health and wellness.”
According to Christina Khoo, Director Emerging Science, Nutrition and Regulatory Affairs at Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., leveraging the A.I Forager to deep dive into the bioactive components in cranberry varietals helped accelerate Ocean Spray’s innovation activities to evaluate exciting health benefits of cranberries including immunity and cognitive health and build the scientific evidence.
“We are thrilled at the early findings of this discovery work which is showcasing how important crop diversity and growing practices are for bioactive content and expression,” said Sofia Elizondo, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Brightseed. “The question Forager is able to answer is not just ‘what is in a cranberry?’ but also ‘what is different about all these cranberry varieties?’ With Forager’s insights, Ocean Spray’s stewardship will be taken to the next level and so will consumer comprehension of what a cranberry can do for health.”
Forager, Brightseed’s proprietary A.I. and an R&D 100 Award winning technology, illuminates what have been traditionally opaque to science – the complex, molecular structures of plant compounds – and maps their impact on human biology. In a few months of A.I.-powered analysis on Ocean Spray’s cranberry strains, Forager found 10x more bioactive phytochemicals and 4x more phytonutrients across a sample of Ocean Spray’s cranberry varieties. Moreover, multiple cranberry strains were packed with more than 350 bioactive compound classes with promise to positively impact immunity and cognition – new territories of health benefits that were previously unknown in cranberries.
Forager’s discoveries may then be evaluated through in vitro validation and potentially human clinical trials to enable clinically proven claims for Ocean Spray’s future product innovations.
