Category: What’s Your Industry?

How Cultures & Enzymes Move the Dairy Industry Forward

by Steve Funk | Senior Cheese Technologist at Nelson-Jameson

Cultures and enzymes are biological catalysts for dairy product production, but they’re also catalysts for the dairy industry as a whole. These hard-working elements work quietly behind the scenes to strengthen the industry’s brand reputation, increase dairy product market share, and delight consumers. 

As the industry continues to adapt to changes and face new and long-standing challenges, cultures and enzymes help dairy advocates respond with answers. The trend toward plant-based alternatives is answered with vegetarian enzymes. Interest in health and wellness is answered with cultures that stimulate the probiotic benefits of yogurts, kefirs, and other cultured dairy. Here are five ways that cultures and enzymes are helping dairy processors.  

Consumer Trends: Year after year, dairy processors aim to strike a balance between tradition and innovation. Consumers count on the availability of their favorite dairy products, but they also want new flavors and formats. Cultures and enzymes keep consumers happy by providing consistently produced dairy staples as well as inventive products that introduce new tastes and textures. They can also impact how well a cheese melts, browns, or blends, providing additional variety to culinary usages. 

Food Safety: The use of cultures and enzymes is increasing because of its success in maintaining the integrity of dairy products and enhancing food safety. New bioprotective cultures can replace chemical preservatives, providing consumers and suppliers with preservative-free products that also have better shelf stability.  Of course, cultures and enzymes are not a substitute for other safety protocols, such as knowing your milk source, understanding plant sanitation, and carefully following all steps in a cleaning process. Still, ongoing advances in cultures and enzymes allow dairy processors to inhibit yeast and mold growth, prevent spoilage, and better protect their products. 

Health and Wellness: Ongoing demand for the gut-health benefits of probiotics continues to keep yogurt at the top of cultured dairy sales. Cultures and enzymes also support other health-driven consumer preferences such as reducing lactose or increasing organic consumption. Beyond product features, the health and wellness benefits of cultured dairy enhance awareness of and interest in dairy as a category and its place in the famous food pyramid.

Food innovation: Industry scientists continue to find new pathways for cultures and enzymes. Product developers can use a 50-year-old, patented culture and/or a novel culture developed within the last year to expand a product line – the old and new work in tandem with each other.  Technical experts are creating new avenues for culture and enzyme usage, such as the use of non-traditional cultures to transform the effects in long-standing cheeses. Dairy processing operations benefit from culture and enzyme innovations as well. They can be added to help accelerate production or make it easier to utilize equipment. 

Brand Strength: As dairy processors utilize cultures and enzymes to enhance product uniqueness, satisfy consumers, and find creative solutions to challenges, a bonus result is industry brand strength. Consumers stay engaged with a food & beverage category when it’s both consistent and innovative, and fosters trust in food safety and health benefits.  In turn, this brand strength bolsters marketing and selling opportunities. 

Cultures and enzymes continue to be the workhorses of cultured dairy products, but they’re also indirect lobbyists for the industry. Dairy processors can benefit from continued focus on the role of cultures and enzymes in all aspects of production. 

If you need more insight on enzymes for your dairy product production, contact the experts at Nelson-Jameson (www.nelsonjameson.com).


About Steve Funk

Steve Funk is Senior Cheese Technologist at Nelson-Jameson. As a passionate dairy industry veteran with more than 40 years of experience, he provides customers with advice on ingredients, production processes, and manufacturing improvements to enhance cheese and fermented dairy product results. His innovative approach to quality cheese-making has helped dozens of customers create and launch unique cheese recipes that are market favorites today. Steve is an active member of numerous dairy industry associations and serves as a WDPA representative on the prestigious Master Cheesemakers Board. He supports the next generation of dairy innovators by serving as a NE-DBIC Dairy Processor Expansion Grant reviewer and a mentor for its Northeastern Dairy Product Innovation Competition, an inaugural program managed by Cornell University’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement and the Northeast Dairy Foods Research Center. He holds a B.S. in Dairy Science and Animal Health from the University of Vermont. When not at work, he enjoys skiing, kayaking, gardening, and spending time with his wife of 38 years, Carla, and their daughter and grandson.

Tags: , , , , ,

Partnering to Drive Food Safety

Nelson-Jameson is a proud member of the Innovation Center for US Dairy. The Center and its members have a common goal “to advance a shared social responsibility platform and demonstrate U.S. dairy’s collective commitment to provide the world responsibly produced dairy foods that nourish people, strengthen communities and foster a sustainable future.”

Nelson-Jameson and the Center have a combined passion for furthering food safety in our nation. Recently, the Center published a terrific food safety resource for the dairy industry that includes numerous Spanish language materials. Resources to take advantage of include: interactive training courses for artisan ice cream and cheesemakers, food safety plan writing assistance, training support, pathogen guidance documents, and much more. 

The document’s publication is a reflection of the partnerships between organizations like Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, the American Cheese Society, the North American Ice Cream Association, International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), and numerous other stakeholders to bring educational materials and information to the forefront. Food safety isn’t a competitive advantage…it’s our collective responsibility. Check out the document here and please feel free to share!

Tags: ,

The (In)Famous Fruitcake

A light snow falls on a cold December afternoon. Up pulls the delivery person with a parcel for you. As you eagerly await them to make their way up to the entryway, you can’t help but wonder what kind of treasure may rest inside. After feigning indifference to the whole excitement at the door, you quickly make your way to the kitchen table and open it up. Inside, your favorite aunt has dutifully and carefully wrapped…a fruitcake. You do which of the following:

A. Excitedly reach for a plate and a nearby knife.
B. Sob uncontrollably in disappointment and throw it.
C. Rewrap it and go visit your sister and her kids.
D. Hide it away only for your consumption (along with those boxes of chocolate covered cherries).

Perhaps the answer is obvious to you…perhaps not. No holiday dessert has drawn in such debate like the fruitcake. As The Society for the Protection and Preservation of Fruitcake (yes, indeed) stated, fruitcake has been “the butt of many jokes and practical jokes-and yet” fruitcake is “esteemed by many, and an important part of many folks’ holiday.” This is certainly true, perhaps even within families: with the pro-fruitcake consortium on one side and the fruitcake defamation league on the other side.

Johnny Carson once famously launched a thousand fruitcakes out of the front door when he quipped, “The worst gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other.” The amount of energy that has been put into picking on the fruitcake has been met on the other side with a passion for promoting this cake, often filled with nuts and fruit, and sometimes soaked in liquor or wine. For instance, “Isabelle” is the author of the blog, “Mondo Fruitcake.” The blog is meant to be a means of sorting through her frustration with “the state of this nation’s attitude toward fruitcake.” It features a year-round look into the world of fruitcakes.

Made in monasteries, bakeries, home ovens, and in many other places, the fruitcake pulls in some heavy support from a diverse crowd of consumers, just as it draws its detractors. Wherever your passions may rest, we can all appreciate that the fruitcake is a standard for the holidays in the United States. Its long history (dating back to ancient Rome!) and its ability to draw in such passion and detachment is a pretty impressive mark on American culture during the holidays. So, grab a knife and a cup of coffee, or package it back up and send it off…no matter, the fruitcake will persevere.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Annatto: A Natural Color Solution

Have you heard the term Annatto before? You’re probably wondering if it’s a fun tropical island you can travel to, or maybe even an article of clothing you can wear, but really, it’s something that is more prevalent in your daily life than you had imagined.

Annatto is a type of food coloring made from the seeds of the achiote tree. It ranges from yellow to red-orange in hue, depending on the application and dosage rate, and is a staple in the food and beverage industry. It is also considered a staple in the dairy industry because it is stable, economical, and comes in a wide variety of forms, including powder, paste, liquid, and essential oils, making it applicable for use in almost any application. A unique fact about annatto is that although it is not well-known, an estimated 70% of natural food colors are derived from it. It also acts as a condiment used to enhance the flavor of dishes due to its slightly sweet and peppery taste.

Annatto also has many possible health benefits associated with it. Annatto contains various plant-based antioxidant properties that are designed to neutralize potentially harmful molecules. If these harmful molecule levels rise too high, they could damage your cells. This means that annatto can help lower your chances of developing a chronic condition such as cancer and heart disease. Research discovered that annatto also encompasses antimicrobial properties that aid in food preservation. This means that its purpose is to further extend the shelf-life for many food products, such as bread. A few other miscellaneous health benefits associated with annatto is that it may promote eye health, aid heart health, and may reduce inflammation in the body.

Overall, it appears that this natural color is generally safe for most individuals. Although still in the early stages of research, the biggest side effect discovered thus far with this seed/food coloring is allergies. This appears to be very minimal for something that has many health benefits associated with it. There still needs to be additional research done to verify if annatto could be a possible recommendation regarding human health reasons.

At Nelson-Jameson, we believe in promoting food safety and offering options that are best suited for company’s to utilize in their industry. That is why we currently offer various annatto color options that are designed to offer natural color solutions for cheese products.

Link to article: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/annatto#bottom-line

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Celebrating World Food Safety Day!

Food safety truly is a collective effort. From the farm to the table, ensuring food safety is a way we can reaffirm our investment in, and care of, those we are feeding. Whether you are helping in the harvest, producing and processing thousands of products a day, serving food at a local pub, or grilling for your family, food safety requires vigilance and care at all levels. Keeping this in mind, the World Health Organization, in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, are recognizing all of those interconnecting players with World Food Safety Day on June 7th.   

The celebration of World Food Safety Day is meant “to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development.” When one considers how food plays into all of these areas, and reverberates across everyday life, food safety really does bind us all together.  

….and there is work to do. Though we are incredibly fortunate to have a robust and generally safe food supply, foodborne illness is a very real threat, demanding care and continued dedication. According to the WHO, “more than 600 million people fall ill and 420,000 die every year from eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or chemicals. As for the economic price tag, according to the World Bank, unsafe food costs low-and middle-income economies alone about US$ 95 billion in lost productivity annually.”  

At Nelson-Jameson, we are proud to recognize and celebrate World Food Safety Day. Our main goal is to help our customers produce the safest and best product they can.  Every product, service, and program we offer are all designed to contribute and build up cultures of food safety 365 days a year. We are committed to working with you and the vast array of stakeholders in ensuring a safe food supply…through teamwork we can take on the challenge and together celebrate the continued path towards food safety excellence around the world.   

 

Tags: , , ,