FrieslandCampina’s innovations in protein support and products

At SupplySide Global 2025, Associate Editor Erin McEvoy interviews Friesland Campina's Sophie Zillinger Molenaar, global marketing execution lead, and Auke Zeilstra, managing director, North America. They highlight how Excellion caseinates support GLP-1 users, how Excellion Texpro improves the texture of protein bars, and research on the ingredient Biotis Fermentis for gut health and muscle support.

Transcript

Erin McEvoy: How does protein support GLP-1 users and what makes Excellion caseinates good for this purpose?

Sophie Zillinger Molenaar: Yes, great question. Thank you. We see GLP-1 more and more in the market, more users of it, also people very much engaged in their health journey. And protein play a very important role of that. It gives us feel of satiety, but also strength in your muscles and sustained energy, and out caseinates portfolio play an important role, because they are very specific in the slow release of the amino acids, so that gives a longer feel of satiety, also gives energy, and it's typically something you could use overnight and really helps to build muscles as well. So that plays protein specific, also caseinates, an important role.

McEvoy: What are highlights of using Excellion Textpro in protein formulations?

Auke Zeilstra: That’s also great question. Thanks for that. You see nowadays, of course, a huge adoption of protein bars in the market, and not only by athletes, but it has become really a mainstream product. What you typically see is that people like really the softer textures. But the crux is, the essence is, how do you keep a soft texture over the shelf life of the product? So we have developed specific caseinates that can create that soft texture, but also during the shelf life, when bars typically tend to start hardening, keep that that soft texture, so that basically what you taste and perceive at day one also is the same thing you taste and perceive at day 365, so, i.e., a good quality product.

McEvoy: How does Biotis Fermentis support gut health and wellbeing?

Zillinger Molenaar: Biotis Fermentis is quite a new, innovative ingredient we launched to the market, and is a one-of-a-kind solution. So it's a combination of prebiotic Biotis GOS, which is fermented with probiotics and also with whey protein inside. So that makes it very unique and tackles different benefits, specifically the gut muscle axis. So on one hand, it really helps to improve your gut health, and the other hand also your muscle health. We also did research, both with consumers and also with clinical done by the Arizona University. And people really perceive and also the message with the clinical really improved energy, also improved feel in their belly. So it's really also helping athletes, but also more active consumers, taking care of the health and their muscles, but also really taking care of their gut health and microbial. Again, that's also very nice concept, which we developed for GLP-1, and that also shows the great type of applications you can put the product in. This is an example of bites, and that is smaller bites, so during the day, you can use it when you have a smaller appetite.

Zeilstra: So the versatility, basically, of Biotis Fermentis in different applications, being heat stable, acid stable, really makes it an ingredient that is very valuable for different formulators around in the industry to start utilizing.