Ingredient forces 2002 Part I: Opportunities and Trends

Dairy Foods, Jan, 2002 by Donna Berry

Fruits and flavors

When it comes to flavoring cultured dairy foods, consumers appear to be ready for something new. For example, Stonyfield now offers a caramel flavor in its organic yogurt line.

Suppliers at this past October's World Wide Food Expo (WWFE) sampled some interestingly flavored cultured products including grapefruit yogurt, ginger pear cottage cheese and blueberry lime yogurt juice drink.

Recent improvements in fruit processing and stabilizers keep fruit pieces intact in fruit preps, enabling manufacturers to develop products containing fruit that looks more natural, and less processed and jam-like. One such technology is aseptic processing of fruit.

Besides improved integrity, the advantages of using aseptically processed fruit preps include commercial sterility (the fruit is free of all pathogenic and spoilage bacteria), uniform brix, and improved flavor, color retention and shelf stability.

Ingredients for milk-based beverages

With milk recognized as one of the most nutritiously complete foods in the food supply, milk-based beverages such as carbonated milk, chai, coffee-milk, energy drinks, smoothies and whey beverages are becoming increasingly popular among consumers as a result of their pursuit of wellness and well being.

According to a recently released report from Packaged Facts, retail sales of shelf-stable milk-based beverages reached $117.4 million in 2001. This category, which does not include coffee-milk drinks but does include beverages such as Yoo-hoo, e-Moo, White Soda and a variety of So Be drinks, is expected to grow to around $160 million by 2006.

Suppliers are offering flavor and stabilizer systems, often fortified with an array of nutrients, to assist product developers in formulating signature milk-based drinks.

At WWFE, one supplier sampled a line of 80% skim milk-based beverages in flavors such as Lemon Chai, Mocha Horchata and Chocolate Malt Milk Ball. The beverages provide consumers with calcium-rich refreshments in flavors that can only be obtained in a milk base. From other suppliers, some unique flavors for milk included blue raspberry, candy bar, cookies and cream, marshmallow peanut butter and rainbow sherbet.

Whey is also becoming a very popular ingredient, particularly in the energy and nutritional drink world. Scientific research indicates that whey protein has the highest biological value of any protein. Biological value measures protein power, and the efficiency with which your body uses protein. Not only is whey readily absorbed by the body, it has been shown to lower cholesterol and help build strong bones.

Whey protein is also being proven in ongoing clinical studies to be a powerful assistant in cancer prevention and treatment. Studies have led researchers to an amazing discovery that whey protein protects healthy cells while cancerous cells are being treated with chemotherapy.

To learn more about the benefits of whey and why its use as an ingredient is growing, visit www.healthywhey.org.

Screaming for ice cream