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Todays recipes for innovation

In the current global economic situation, it is a natural reflex for companies to cut costs and stop innovating. But in the long run, this is not the best recipe for early recovery when the economy picks up again. NIZO food research offers options for cutting costs, without stopping innovation. In addition, NIZO provides solutions for direct cost savings, in process as well as product development.
Yes, the current market situation is challenging, Meike te Giffel, research director at NIZO, states. She understands customers considerations, but takes the opportunity to stress the vital importance of innovation. Business research has shown that companies that keep their innovation pipeline filled show a much better performance when emerging from a recession. NIZO, however, acknowledges the need for customers to cut their costs. To meet their demand, NIZO has geared up its portfolio, ranging from consortium building to cost saving scans. And of course, we offer our customers a flexible R&D capacity, hence reducing their fixed costs. partners can share research costs and risks, often with the additional bonus of subsidies. Currently, the prime innovation driver for consortia is health, Te Giffel observes. For instance, we are actively involved in consortia on low sugar, low fat, and low salt. Also, and equally important these days, all consortia are, from the perspective of the individual participant, low cost.

Higher value, lower costs

Quick scans
Naturally, projects that yield immediate cost savings are in full gear now. NIZO helps customers to improve their processes, for example by reducing energy consumption in dairy plants or valorization of waste from beer manufacturing. But it is not only process innovation that will yield direct savings, Te Giffel stresses. Product innovation may do the same trick, for instance by selecting cheaper ingredients such as vegetable proteins, or by converting raw materials into higher value specialties with properties such as prebiotic functionality. To make its expertise more readily available, NIZO is in the process of developing a number of quick scans. These scans allow customers to rapidly decide whether or not to pursue a specific line of process or product innovation. These screening tools help to speed up product development and reduce costs as well.

Consortia
Building research consortia is a long-running business of NIZOs. But these days, consortia have become all the more attractive, Te Giffel declares. They provide the critical mass in funds and competences required to conduct large research projects, while at the same time

products that offer quality, convenience and high emotional value at the same time. This trend opens a new window of opportunities for product innovation, Meike te Giffel concludes. We have excellent facilities to engage with customers in a process of co-creating new food products. We are not confining ourselves to our lab work, but utilize our Food Application Centre as well. There, customers may participate in cooking sessions with our chef in an exciting atmosphere. Now, theres a recipe for successful innovation. meike.te.giffel@nizo.nl

Creating value from a waste stream

A whey example
The Orkney Cheese Company Ltd is a premium Cheddar cheese producer based on the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland. The whey released during cheese production is discharged as a waste stream. Since this whey is of premium quality, NIZO food research was requested to perform a valorization scan to determine the most promising approach to utilization of this waste stream. Application in the food market would potentially generate the highest gross value. Following a valorization scan at the creamery several concept processing routes were identified and economically evaluated. In this unique location transportation and scale issues had to be taken into account. The valorization scan identified opportunities for the Orkney Cheese Company to minimize waste disposal and make money from its waste stream at the same time. NIZO food research offers by-stream valorization scans for a wide range of products and offers a quick insight into the valorization potential for feed and food applications . coen.akkerman@nizo.nl

Dinner at NIZOs
Supermarket sales are still increasing these days, which is remarkable. Consumers still demand innovative food

Sweet taste altered by means of aromas

Smelling of an aroma creates a flavour image that relates to the flavour and taste of the product the aroma is associated with. The smell of vanillin is perceived as sweet as it commonly occurs in sweet products such as confectionery although sweetness cannot be smelled. This aroma-taste association is powerful enough to enhance sweetness perception. Most studies have measured this effect when the aroma was part of the solution and swallowed with the tastant (retronasal aroma delivery). In collaboration with Pepsi-Cola, we measured sweetness intensity enhancement when the aroma was not swallowed but given in orthonasal fashion via the nose. This was achieved by an olfactometer that allows the controlled delivery of aromas into the nose. Solutions were perceived as significantly sweeter if a sweet

smelling odorant was delivered orthonasally than they were without the aroma. Understanding the impact of aroma perception on the overall flavour of a product is of great help in product optimization in e.g. low sugar products. kerstin.burseg@nizo.nl

Gerhard de Ruiter, Head Innovation Centers, Sime Darby

Innovative solutions in oils and fats

Fats and oils may not be the most popular foodstuffs in the public eye, but they are essential food ingredients for good tasting and healthy foods. They determine structure as well as flavour release, and hence taste. And they provide a healthy business to Unimills in Zwijndrecht, a leading European supplier of tailor-made vegetable oils and fats. Recently, new investments were announced, including a fully equipped innovation centre. Unimills innovation challenge is to improve fats, by reducing their saturated fatty acids content, without compromising on taste. NIZO food research is contributing its application expertise.
Unimills is a member of the Malaysia-based Sime Darby Group, which is the worlds largest plantation company, delivering seven percent of the global produce of palm oil. In Zwijndrecht, vegetable oils are processed, i.e. refined, to make hard stocks (the fats that provide margarines and spreads with their structure and spreadability), dough fats, and ingredients for a variety of products, ranging from soups to ice cream and confectionery. announced the establishment of the Sime Darby Innovation Centre Europe to be completed early 2010, and the investment in a new factory for tailoring fat functionality using modern enzyme technology.

Flavour release
Health is the dominant trend, De Ruiter explains. Translated to our business, it means that customers would like to have natural vegetable oils with reduced saturated fat levels while maintaining excellent taste and texture of the food products. Fat is a major determin ant of structure and flavour perception, so if you modify fats, it may alter the taste, and that is something consumers do not like. In Europe, we are the first to employ largescale enzyme technology to produce healthy hard stocks. It allows us to realize more and better functionalities, while at the same time running more environmentfriendly processes using less energy and producing less waste water.

Innovation-centered
These investments underline Sime Darbys strategy, focusing on innovation and responsibility. Already more than 25 years ago, Sime Darby R&D started with developing sustainable plantation management, such as integrated pest management, zero burning practices and new composting technology. Now, sustainability also applies to all downstream activities such as capturing energy saving opportunities and reducing waste water streams. Innovation is another cornerstone of Unimills strategy and based on co-development of new products which fit into a healthy lifestyle, with leading European food companies.

Flourishing
Over the years, commodity-based Unimills has transformed into a company focused on delivering high value tailor-made products. Based on its successful strategy, Unimills is flourishing and well-positioned for the future, says Gerhard de Ruiter, who is heading the three global Innovation Centres of the Sime Darby plantation division in Europe, Africa and Asia. Sime Darby recently

Food Valley
Rapid and successful innovation requires access to a network of multidisciplinary food scientists and state-of-

Metabolic navigator
A new tool for product innovations in fermentation
The time has come for the food and fermentation industry to harvest the fruits of the genomics revolution in biological sciences. Sequencing entire genomes of production bugs and starter cultures is no longer an academic exercise but has become a routine type of analysis. NIZO food research is acting at the frontline to translate these developments into concrete applications for our customers in the food and fermentation industry. One of the recent innovations is a navigator for bioconversions, an instrument which facilitates the development of biological ingredients and helps to improve industrial and food related fermentation processes.
Food grade bacteria are being used in the food and fermentation industry for preservation, to add flavour and texture, and for biofortification with health ingredients. Almost all these functionalities are directly linked to the metabolic activities of the fermenting microbes. Metabolic functions of microbes of interest can be extracted from the genome sequence using state-of-theart computer software programs (bioinformatics tools). The newly developed metabolic navigator integrates all knowledge of these microbial metabolic functions into easily accessible metabolic roadmaps. These customized roadmaps can be applied for (i) improving biomass and ingredient yield, (ii) quality control of the production medium and (iii) discovery and exploitation of new functionalities of starter cultures. Recently NIZO food research researchers elegantly demonstrated the use of a genome scale metabolic model of Lactobacillus plantarum for a simple but highly effective improvement of aerobic fermentation conditions. eddy.smid@nizo.nl

Course Food Genomics

NIZO food research is organizing a course on Food Genomics, specifically meant for senior management, innovation managers, R&D managers and other professionals working in the dairy, food and ingredient industries (29-30 October 2009).Participants will be informed of the latest technologies and the impact these will have on their business in modern food production, nutrition, health and safety. Check our website for further information.

the-art application facilities, De Ruiter continues. In general, customers expect us to assist them with relevant innovation capabilities. That is exactly the reason for our long-term collaboration with Food Valley, with organizations such as the Netherlands Bakery Centre and NIZO food research. NIZO is currently one of the leading European food science organizations with an in-depth knowledge of food applications, especially related to food taste and texture, combined with an effective businessoriented approach. We are glad to use their skills and facilities. For example, they know how to make ice cream or powder products. In a large project, they helped us to develop new fat formulations for ice cream, containing less saturated fats, while preserving the creaminess experience. Unimills successfully launched a series of new Cremex products based on patented technology developed by NIZO.

Fast Screening of wine yeast for flavour optimization

Sofralab, a French wine ingredients supplier, wants to characterize its wine yeast culture collection in more detail in order to fulfil the needs of its customers. The use of selected wine yeast starters for alcoholic fermentation is a common p ractice in France. However, traditional screening and selection methods are time consuming and laborious. Therefore NIZO food research developed a microscale alcoholic fermentation platform for fast and semi-automated screening of wine yeasts. Via this approach strains are clustered with respect to their growth and flavour formation characteristics. Moreover, NIZO is currently developing sensitive methods for the detection of specific fermentative flavour compounds essential for quality description of different wine varieties. heleen.goorissen@nizo.nl liesbeth.pepin-rijnen@nizo.nl (french speaking)

Complementing
Unimills new innovation centre will only intensify the collaboration, De Ruiter concludes: Our centre will cover food-grade oil processing, so it will be complementing NIZOs Food Application Centre, allowing Unimills to offer their customers effective innovations to launch new, commercially successful products.

Four ways to increase the value of your whey protein products

NIZO food research has contributed to the development of many highadded-value whey protein ingredients. Nowadays 60% of the whey is used for production of specialty ingredients with nutritional and functional properties. Depending on the purity and functionality, these ingredients are high value products with significant margins. Whey proteins are used in a whole range of products such as bakery, meat products, infant formulas, food supplements, sport bars and beverages. Based on 60 successful years of protein research, NIZO has developed a screening tool for companies to benchmark the value of their (whey) protein products and to advise how to maximize the required value.
Ultrafiltration diafiltration (evaporation) and drying

3 Tasty proteins
We are experienced in improving the aroma profile, which has resulted in better-tasting WPC. Analysis and masking of off-tastes (e.g. bitter) has been applied to hydrolysates for infant formulas. The interaction between saliva in the mouth and proteins in the product can result in protein astringency or a roughness and dryness during consumption. By modifying the charge of whey proteins, this undesirable effect has been positively adjusted in high-protein applications.

Better-digestible proteins
In developing ingredients for nutrition applications (like infant foods), digestibility is an important parameter. That is why Kerry Ingredients commissioned NIZO to independently determine the digestibility of Kerrys Ultranor Beta (beta-casein enriched) product versus a commercial alpha-casein and a comm ercial sodium caseinate. Intrinsic differences between casein proteins include accessibility to gastrointestinal proteases under gastrointestinal conditions, and therefore the kinetics of the protein digestion may differ. Digestions of the milk protein samples with the gastric protease pepsin were carried out using part of the NIZO infant SIMPHYD procedure with some slight modifications (Hernandez-Ledesma et al., 2007). The method enabled us to investigate the rate of casein breakdown during simulated digestion. The SIMPHYD procedure supported that the beta-casein fraction was more susceptible than the alphaS1casein fraction to pepsin digestion in all samples studied. Overall, Ultranor Beta was more susceptible to pepsin digestion than the commercial alpha-casein and commercial sodium caseinate samples. Therefore, Ultranor Beta is ideally suited to nutrition applications where a better-digestible protein source is wanted. tim.lambers@nizo.nl

pasteurisation

pasteurisation

whey WPC/ WPC/ WPI WPI

1 Efficient proteins
By understanding how processing affects the functionality of whey protein ingredients, NIZO food research was able to tune the high-gelling behaviour of WPC, resulting in a 10-fold higher gelling capability. This means less protein is required, resulting in lower costs of endproducts such as toppings and desserts.

4 Stable proteins
A new trend in weight management and sports drinks is acidified high-protein beverages. Processing of whey proteins at low pH is difficult, resulting in undesired precipitation. Traditionally whey proteins are hydrolysed for stability at low pH. NIZO has technologies that prevent denaturation and aggregation of dairy proteins to maximize stability without hydrolysis. Whey proteins are modified so that they are soluble and stable at the required pH. arno.alting@nizo.nl

2 Healthy proteins
NIZO has developed whey protein hydrolysates with targeted health benefits such as oral health, lowering blood pressure and binding specific minerals. Fast in-vitro assays enable detection of activity and optimization of health ingredients. We have e.g. cost-effective methods to produce Albutensin from BSA and preliminary in-vivo studies show the satiety potential of this peptide.

Toon van Hooijdonk, Corporate Director R&D, FrieslandCampina

Products for clinical trials

Combining good taste and quality
BiolActis is a Canadian biotechnology company that transforms substrate proteins by means of an innovative fermentation process leading to valueadded products called Multi Plex Matrices (MPM). BiolActis promotes the health benefits of its MPM for the regulation of complex metabolic disorders. Cardiolactis is an MPM-containing ready-to-mix functional drink aimed at reducing LDLcholesterol and triglyceride levels. To successfully test the functionality of the bioactive ingredient in a clinical trial, BiolActis required patient kits with sachets containing Cardiolactis or placebo drymix with an acceptable taste, to avoid dropout due to taste. To be able to maintain the tight time-frame of the scheduled multi-centred clinical trial, BiolActis asked NIZO to assist in the development of the formulation design, the at-home procedure for drink preparation of the Cardiolactis dry-mix, and the production and distribution of the sachets. NIZO performed the product design in close cooperation with employees of BiolActis. The food grade production of the sachets involving selection and dryblending of ingredients was successfully carried out in the NIZO Processing Centre. The required patient kits were provided on time using NIZOs experience in product development, quality and processing aspects. This multi-disciplinary approach enabled BiolActis to successfully perform a European multi-centered clinical trial with minimal dropouts of patients during the trials. It boosted further product development for commercial introduction of their product. marja.kanning@ nizo.nl

Get more out of milk

2009 saw the official start of the worlds largest farmer-owned dairy company, FrieslandCampina, resulting from the merger of the two Dutch dairy giants, Friesland Foods and Campina. It will help the Dutch dairy community to focus even more on innovation to get more out of milk, as Corporate Director R&D, Toon van Hooijdonk, puts it. Innovation
Early in 2009, Van Hooijdonk, at corporate headquarters in Amersfoort, is in the middle of merging the Friesland Foods and Campina research organizations and their respective project portfolios. We are now defining joint research topics for this year, and updating our common long-term strategy. Even more than before, innovation will become one of our cornerstones, in the consumer market as well as in the business-to-business ingredients market. To get more out of milk, for instance, we are investigating the extraction of valuable components, for baby, medical and sports nutrition, and for pharmaceutical and medical applications. ing, for example, pre- and probiotics, or offering weight control. And the billboard opposite Van Hooijdonks office shows a new direction: Milner cheese, now with low salt, Milner being the low-fat cheese that was successfully developed by Campina. Now, on the national level, guidelines for reducing the salt content of foodstuffs have been agreed upon, Van Hooijdonk explains: We are in a step-by-step process of lowering salt content in all our cheeses. Very carefully, because salt not only influences taste, but also structure and bestbefore date. FrieslandCampina is also investigating the reduction of sugar in yoghurt and drinks. The challenge is to maintain the good taste of the products. fashionable at the moment, but yes, it is true. In this respect, Van Hooijdonk values NIZO food research for its unique knowledge of milk, lactic acid bacteria (yoghurt and health products fermentation) and processing technologies (such as evaporation, and options for cleaning cost reductions and energy savings).

Nice work
The latest scale-up in the Dutch dairy industry ties in with NIZOs ongoing transformation from a general dairy research lab to a dedicated contract research partner, Van Hooijdonk concludes. For example, recently they did some nice work on the heat inactivation of paratuberculosis bacteria in milk. As part of a large food safety programme, NIZO developed a highly specific detection method and demonstrated that Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis is inactivated during pasteurization of milk. This is an important result for FrieslandCampina, which values the highest food quality and safety standards.

Unique knowledge of milk

Concerning research collaboration in the Netherlands, FrieslandCampina is a major participant in the Top Institute Food and Nutrition (TIFN). I find it important for the Netherlands to stay at the top in food. Our challenge, however, is to convert the results of precompetitive TIFN research into business innovations, at a high pace. To that end, we will extend collaborations with research partners such as NIZO. Open innovation is

Low salt
The health trend is continuing and even intensifying, Van Hooijdonk observes. We address that trend with products contain-

Co-creation with scientists and chef

From concept to recipe

Red palm oil dressing

Experts from Unimills/Sime Darby and NIZO cooperated in a brainstorm session. Potential new products were demonstrated interactively in the Food Application Centre that same day. In a creative session scientists enthousiasti-

cally worked together with culinary experts to translate their ideas into recipes and applications. stacy.pyett@nizo.nl Red palm oil brioche

Texture

About NIZO food research

Processing
Research centre Processing centre

Colophon
NIZO Vision is published by NIZO food research BV, Ede, The Netherlands. All rights reserved. Website: www.nizo.com Tel. +31 318 659 511 | E-mail: info@nizo.nl Editorial team: Hendrik Prins, NIZO food research; Miriam Korstanje, Freelance Editorial support: Van Eerden tekst; Chris Sinclair Realisation: Einder Communicatie, Nijmegen Photography: Cornelie van Dijk, Rob Dekker

Flavour

Application centre

Food Safety

Health

NIZO food research is an independent and one of the most advanced research centres in Europe. We help industry to be more profitable by developing and improving new product benefits (Flavour, texture, health), by providing speed (easily mobilized expertise and test production capacity) and by supporting image (food safety & quality, safe & sustainable processing, evidence based health claims) at minimal fixed costs for its clients. The foodgrade pilot plant is used for development and testing at industrial level and is available for test productions. The NIZO application centre provides industry with facilities for product development & product oriented research.