Inside FrieslandCampina Ingredients' New Application Lab: Part 1

Sebastian Krawiec: How does this application lab will facilitate closer collaboration with brands and manufacturers across North America?

Idil Kavakli: So, this is our fifth regional application center and the idea behind that is to bring the brand owners, the manufacturers closer to where the magic happens. So, this new New Jersey application center is going to bring the agility in the development process, how we are envisioning a new idea coming from our brand owners, manufacturers and how quickly we can pilot it, test it, touch up on it, in real time, seeing the results of it, then helping them to accelerate in terms of commercialization. We have all the analytical skills, testing, the right equipment, and also the application expertise that will be supporting our customers to bring those ideas that we can develop it together here, bring our experience and also the creativity, and also making it a process that we can iterate, "Oh, we have done this. This is the result. This is what we need to play up in terms of texture, in terms of taste." And we can all do it real time and go to the results much more quickly. So, from an idea towards proof of concept and afterwards to industrialization.

Sebastian Krawiec: What are some notable market gaps and opportunities that your ingredient portfolio of proteins and prebiotics can help customers address.

Idil Kavakli: Very good question, and I would like to start with the reality that 85% of US consumers are actually saying that if a product doesn't taste well, if it doesn't experience well, they are not willing to pay or buy despite any nutritional benefits of it. So, what we are also trying to achieve with this application lab is give the brand owners, the manufacturers, the chance to optimize even from that idea, conceptualization point of view to see how we can optimize the taste, the experience with the nutritional value. And when it comes to FrieslandCampina Ingredients' portfolio, we have a lot of products bringing the nutrition trends for what the consumers are looking for. For example, when you look at the NutriWhey portfolio, which is the whey protein isolates, the WPC-80 type of ingredients we have, you see that we have high quality whey protein really processed in the most mild way to encapsulate all the nutrition that is possible and bring to the consumers all the different protein applications. And within that range, we recently launched, for example, our microparticulated whey, which is the spot on ingredient to help heat stable kind of yogurt drinks, fermented drinks, bringing the high protein. Another [trend] is that the bar segment, the bar market is growing very much every day with all different applications. And there's one challenge the producers are facing, which is the stability over the shelf life and our Excellion Calcium Caseinates, the Textpro solution are really a good answer to make that chewy soft bar long lasting until the shelf life. And another one I would love to put a bit on the spotlight is the latest trends that we see the emergence of gut health, the GLP-1, and in that sense, it's we have quite an expertise on prebiotics, on GOS. We have an ingredient called Fermentis that is fermenting together the whey proteins together with prebiotics, together with GOS, that brings also the postbiotics and makes the ultimate blend of proteins with prebiotics, not only giving the muscle support, but also the gut health angle these consumers are looking for, especially when it comes to GLP one usage.