In an interview, Andrew Fordyce, Executive Vice President, Food & Beverages, Novozymes A/S with Chemical Today magazine talks at length about the ways in which enzymes can make food and beverages healthier, tastier and nutritious.
By Shivani Mody
Trends in the food & beverage enzymes industry.
Food & beverage enzymes are the largest categories in the enzyme world – yet only a small fraction of the food ingredients and processing aids market. It is a global industry with many applications – beverages, baking, starch, oils & fats, and food & nutrition.
Novozymes is the global leader in the food & beverages enzyme market. It is the most fragmented and diverse market for the company – with a broad portfolio of 300+ products across applications. We help customers improve the quality and sustainability of their food and beverage products and the processes and thereby bring better products to consumers.
We have identified two macro trends and three industry trends that also set the scope for future growth.
Around the world, we are witnessing shifting demographics and urbanisation. This creates a growing demand for better, more convenient and healthier foods, for improved processing and optimisation of raw materials, and for substitutes for animal protein. All areas where enzymes can help.
This trend also creates challenges, as consumers form preferences for traditional foods, and local markets and dietary habits are fragmented. Local market regulation is also fragmented and this slows market entry.
Another macro trend is the digitalization of the global economy. Our customers use data analytics to validate the efficiency gains they achieve by using enzymes.
In the food & beverages industry, consumers focus more on health, wellness and natural products. This translates into business opportunities for enzymes, as we witness an increased awareness about food safety, a demand for “naturally healthy” products, and growth in the market for “food intolerance” products, such as lactose-free dairy.
Another strong trend in the industry is the increased cost of raw materials. This increases demand for optimisation in raw materials and production processes.
Finally, we see customers consolidating operations, but diversifying brands to cater to hyper-local consumer preferences. This provides an opportunity for Novozymes to forge strong partnerships with our customers and help them optimise costs and build their brands.
Areas of growth for food & beverage enzymes.
We see demand for our enzymes that supports the global trends of urbanisation – which for instance means more on-the-go eating.
We all see the rise of organic, where enzymes can support the labelling of our customers’ products.
In terms of regions, from the ongoing industrialisation of emerging markets – Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, China, India, and Southeast Asia – is where we will see increased growth.
There is also an interesting growth area in terms of enabling the use of local raw materials eg. brewing in Africa where there is a strong culture of homemade beer – opaque beer – made out of locally grown raw materials like sorghum or cassava. In cases like this, we are extremely proud when our enzymes are used to ensure consistency and make commercial beer based 100 percent on such local raw materials, helping to produce high-quality local offerings, while catering to the traditional taste of the consumers.
Technological development in food & beverage enzymes business.
The company invests around 13 percent of our revenue back into R&D to help us to find new and effective enzyme and microbial solutions for our customers. With that industry-leading investment, we continue to find new enzymes that expand our ability to transform the quality and sustainability of our customer’s food and beverage products and processes. Examples of our innovation are our recent launch of Extended brand products for starch refining, new enzymes launching in 2017 for oil and fats processing, and our newest enzyme for dairy, a lactose-reduction product called Saphera. We see this commitment to innovation as a powerful way for us to help the Food and Beverage industry to take advantage of opportunities and improve business.
Factors restraining increased usage of food & beverage enzymes.
I can mention two factors – an increased focus on costs at our customers, and then the very fragmented nature of the food & beverage industry. A lot of the needs are niche, which means we cannot justify innovation in all areas. The fragmented industry structure and industry profile also make for a slower ramp-up of new products, but a long lifetime.
Potential regions for growth.
The more established markets – Europe and North America – are the largest markets for Novozymes food & beverage today. However, we definitely see the rise of the emerging markets, and we expect and plan for a balancing out of the global picture. However, it is very different by sub-business.
We are seeing growth potential in literally every emerging market – including China, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and certain Middle Eastern and African countries.
Food & beverage enzymes business within the company.
We are the second largest business area for Novozymes and serve several key markets, including:
- Baking
- Starch processing
- Oilseed processing
- Dairy and infant formula
- Beer, wine & distilled alcohol
- Juice production
Plans to expand footprint in potential regions.
The ongoing industrialisation and urbanisation of emerging markets in Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa regions continue to provide growth opportunities for our biological solutions.
Our strategic plan is to invest in regional footprints and sharper techno-commercial capabilities to better understand customers’ needs – and develop solutions that address their needs. Another key part of our strategic plan is to drive regional innovations, particularly relating to locally available raw materials, and to develop new enzymatic applications in indigenous foods and beverages.
Latest R&D and innovations.
Some of our recent examples in R&D:
- Saphera: a lactase enzyme that sets a new standard for production and quality of a wide range of lactose-free products, including milk and fermented dairy products such as yoghurt. Originated from Bifidobacterium bifidum, Saphera differs considerably from traditional lactases made from yeast. With Saphera, the desired lactose level can be more precisely measured and easily reached. Saphera works at lower pH and higher temperature than other lactases and is therefore not only suitable for the production of lactose-free milk and other products, but also for fermented dairy products.
- Extenda: an enzyme solution that lowers the cost of converting starch into sweeteners. Targeting the saccharification step, the enzyme produces more dextrose than any other product in the market.
- Acrylaway: modifies the amino acid asparagine which is responsible for the formation of acrylamide during cooking. This significantly reduces the level of acrylamide in the final food product. Acrylamide is a chemical compound naturally formed in some food types when baked, fried, toasted or roasted and is considered to be a potential health risk.
Quality and sustainability of food & beverages enzymes by the company.
A few examples to explain Novozymes’ work towards quality and sustainability:
Novamyl is an enzyme that keeps bread fresh longer. It reduces the amount of waste while still allowing for very high-quality bread. The bread remains softer and more resilient for longer, reducing unit costs and number of deliveries required to keep fresh products on the shelf.
With our newest innovations in starch, we help our customers get more starch and more protein with less corn; we help them process starch at lower pH levels while using less water.
We help our customers sustainably convert oil feedstocks into biodiesel whilst lowering the use of chemicals.
Novozymes’ solutions help juice producers ‘make more from less’ by squeezing more juice out of apples, pears, stone fruits, grapes, and berries, as well as removing haze-causing substances from the juice.
Enzymatic interesterification produces hard stocks for margarine and shortening fats without creating unhealthy trans-fatty acids. Enzymatic interesterification is a more cost-efficient process than chemical interesterification.
And with Saphera we enable dairy producers to easily reach the desired lactose level in low-lactose products.
Factors that will increase demand for Carbohydrases usage in future.
Carbohydrates are one class of enzymes that is used actively in food & beverages, along with proteases, lipases, and cellulases. We see growth in all of the enzymatic categories due to increasing volume of food processing and innovation that increases the benefits of enzymes for food & beverage processors.
Ways you address consumer awareness towards quality food, food safety, processed & packaged food and waste reduction.
- Our strategies are linked to the mega trends that I mentioned before. For instance, in the area of safety, we have a technology, Acrylaway, that can significantly eliminate acrylamide in fried foods.
- We work with regulatory agencies to ensure that Novozymes enzymes are fully compliant with all requirements to be sold ie. FIAP registrations.
- We are exploring technologies that can improve yields in vegetable oil processing.
- We look for different substrates ie. cassava, to apply enzymes, or to use local raw materials in such areas as brewing.
- As a market leader, it is our job to increase the penetration of enzymes – not merely try and take market share from our competition.
- That is also why we spend around 13 percent of sales on R&D to ensure that we can continue to supply our customers with new exciting innovation and remain the global leader in enzyme technology
© Chemical Today Magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment