New whey product for babies

NEW INNOVATOR:Dairygold

DAIRYGOLD MAY be one of Ireland’s longest established and most significant food companies, but it cannot afford to rest on its laurels. Coming up with bright new ideas is its life blood.

The €750 million turnover co-operative is a major producer of food ingredients and much of what it does goes unnoticed by the general consumer.

The company has a busy RD department where product breakthroughs are made and eventually end up in the foods we buy. Dairygold’s latest industry- leading development is a heat- stable demineralised whey powder, a key component in the manufacture of infant formula.

It is added to ensure that the nutritional profile of cow’s milk is more similar to breast milk.

Up to now, ensuring the consistent quality of whey has been a big challenge as it becomes variable when combined with other ingredients and different manufacturing processes across the world. This has led to particular problems with heat- processing during production and when the powder is made into a soluble feed.

Dairygold’s innovation and development team in Mitchelstown set its mind to solving this problem and over the last two years has developed a new heat-stable whey product.

The product also gives improved solubility when the infant formula powder is reconstituted and improves both its functionality and appearance.

Dairygold’s innovation team worked closely with the research and development departments of a number of leading formula producers to develop the new ingredient.

“The research involved extensive laboratory experiments of milk and whey analysis across the production season,” says Dairygold’s head of innovation Paul Bouchier, “then designing the optimum ingredient and the hard bit of converting one form to the other.”

Liquid whey is produced as a byproduct of cheese manufacturing and was traditionally used to feed livestock. As a major cheese producer, Dairygold generates a significant amount of liquid whey and its RD department has always been looking at ways in which it might add value. Infant formula was identified as a potential market and today Dairygold is one of the world’s largest suppliers of demineralised whey.

Dairygold has almost 3,000 milk suppliers and their output of 960 million litres a year accounts for about 18 per cent of the total Irish milk pool.

Ireland produces about 20 per cent of the world’s infant formula through manufacturers such as Danone, Wyeth and Abbott. Enterprise Ireland values the global market for infant formula in the region of €7 billion.