Conservative North American dairy more 'open to innovation': Chr Hansen

Speaking with DairyReporter.com at the International Dairy Show in Chicago last week, Roy Riley, Chr Hansen’s marketing director for cultures and enzymes in North America, said that heightened interest in ingredients, such as its SoGreek yogurt cultures and WhiteWhey, suggests that American and Canadian dairies are increasingly prepared to "change and adapt quickly."​

“Even though we typically consider the dairy market to be rather conservative, we do see here that the market is willing to change and adapt quickly,”​ he said.

“I think that it shows that our market is open to innovation, is looking for new solutions and new answers to provide a better quality product and something that also helps the bottom line.”​

The company was in Chicago to exhibit two products - WhiteWhey and its SoGreek range, which was launched earlier this year.

WhiteWhey was developed to help producers of cheddar and Gouda to glean more value from their whey by-product - the liquid remaining after milk has been coagulated and drained - while maintaining the color of their cheese. When producing cheddar and Gouda-type cheese, manufacturers add color to improve the appearance of the product. However, this color often transfers to the whey, coloring it yellow - an issue for manufacturers of infant formula, bread, and yogurt, who require white whey.

“It’s a new cheese color, and the benefit of this cheese color is that the color stays and is retained in the curd, and the resulting whey and the whey powder is very white – it is very similar to an uncolored whey powder,"​ said Riley.

“And we see a growing demand for WhiteWhey to be used in different food applications, also for infant formula in the Asian market," ​he added.