IDM ¦ Ingredients
Living the
ice cream dream
Generous with knowledge
Marilyn Tan has been an application technologist at
Palsgaard Asia-Pacific for five years and part of its
dairy and ice cream team for one. It’s the dream
role for someone with a passion for food.
“It’s a really great job because I like to eat!” she
laughs. “After high school, I wasn’t into engineering or accounting.
Food technology was a very niche topic but making ice cream and
getting to eat it is kind of my dream job – I’m still not tired of it!”
She also enjoys being part of a culture that encourages learning:
“What I love about working here is that Palsgaard people are
generous with their knowledge. We regularly come together to
pass on what we’ve learned. And we don’t just want to share our
knowledge within the company but also with customers and distributors.”
The big difference is the Palsgaard know-how. “It’s very important
to us that we understand what our customers need. We don’t
just say ‘Ok – try this’ – we do all we can to identify the cause of any
problems. For example, if a product is unstable, we try to work out
why. Is it the process? Or that the emulsifier dosage is insufficient?
Or the use of the wrong product? We work hard to understand the
system so we can recommend a solution,“ says Marilyn Tan.
Different cultures, different ice cream
Something else that has helped Marilyn increase her knowledge
is the huge diversity of ice cream markets in the Asia-Pacific
region. “There are so many different cultures” she explains.
“From Sri Lanka to Pakistan to the Philippines, they all use different
ingredients in ice cream. In Australia and New Zealand,
there’s more demand for creamy, indulgent, high-end products,
and they’re more likely to use animal fats like cream. In South
Asia, vegetable fats are more common, partly because they’re
more accessible than dairy in those countries, and partly because
they’re cheaper.”
A big part of her role is being able to respond to these different
needs. “We have to be able to recommend things that
suit each particular market,” she says. “We have a wide range
of products that cater to what customers need, but we also
have to work hard to understand how they work in different
systems.”
Integrated ice cream solutions with an extra
helping of customer service
Ice cream is essentially an unstable solution of oil and water.
The job of emulsifiers is to displace the protein on the surfaces
Palsgaard ExtruIce and Palsgaard MouldIce are fully integrated
blends ensuring accurate proportion of emulsifiers and
stabilisers (photo: Palsgaard)
8 · September/October 2021 ¦ international-dairy.com
/international-dairy.com
