IDM ¦ Ingredients
Pros of Natural
Protective Cultures for
Dairy Preservation
Author: Julien Plault, IFF Global Product Manager, Protective Cultures
Each year, 116 million tons of dairy products go to waste.1
Eighty percent of all yogurt waste in EU is due to the “useby”
date expiring while the product is somewhere in supply
chain.2 Dairy producers seeking to reduce product
waste and increase sustainability must navigate between managing
temperature-controlled supply chains to deliver fresh-tasting,
high-quality dairy products, while meeting retailer and consumer
shelf-life expectations. To achieve this, manufacturers have the
possibility to use artificial preservatives to control the growth of
unwanted contaminants.
However, consumer preferences are changing. In the U.S., almost
30% of consumers look for preservative-free labels when
shopping while 83% of Brazilian consumers are willing to pay
more for food with “no preservatives,” and 56% of Chinese consumers
go so far as claiming preservatives decrease the nutritional
value of food.3
TATE & LYLE Sustainability programme for stevia
22 · September/October 2022 ¦ international-dairy.com
“Clean labels” for foods have grown in popularity in recent
years. These labels are typically linked to simplicity in ingredients
and less processing in production. “No artificial preservatives” is the
most common type of “clean label” claim used in packaged food.
Thus, transparency in ingredients through labelling has become a
crucial strategy for establishing and maintaining consumer trust.
Protective cultures
Thankfully, promising solutions that address these challenges have
emerged in the form of bioprotective cultures. Protective cultures
harness the natural power of fermentation, an ancestral way of
supporting food freshness that has been implemented for thousands
of years. These cultures are made of an edge selection of
good microorganisms which have a natural ability to fight against
the bad ones through different complex mechanisms such as the
competitive exclusion, organic acids compounds or other natural
metabolites production. Protective cultures are the results of
Tate & Lyle has entered into the next phase of its sustainability
programme for stevia, a plant-derived and in-demand
low-calorie sweetener, by enrolling new farmers in
China. The programme will support participating farmers
to implement best practices identified in its 2019 stevia
life-cycle-analysis and verified in its 2021 on-farm pilot.
Tate & Lyle partnered with environmental charity Earthwatch
Europe (Earthwatch), working with Nanjing Agricultural
University in East China, to develop the programme,
which aims to ensure that the stevia industry
grows sustainably. In 2022, an expanded cohort of farmers
News
in Dongtai, Jiangsu Province, East China and additional
stevia farmers in Linze, Gansu Province, West China will
implement the agronomic practice changes piloted last
year, and trial additional changes to further minimise
their environmental footprint.
Participating growers will be supported to pursue sustainability
related verification for their stevia through the Sustainable
Agriculture Initiative Platform’s Farm Sustainability
Assessment and have been encouraged to sign Tate &
Lyle’s Stevia Supplier Sustainability Commitment, a pledge
to reduce the environmental impact of stevia farming.
/international-dairy.com
