Friesland partnership progresses whey production
production times while developing purification technologies and
reducing cost for the functional foods and dairy markets through
their new partnership.
The two companies have signed an agreement, which will last five years, for the joint development of separation technology to extract more beneficial components from dairy ingredients, specifically whey, and fruit extracts to improve the quality of existing ingredients. Managing director of Friesland Foods Demo Roelof Joosten said: "By implementing advanced technology, we want to be able to respond more quickly to market demand and shorten our products' time to market. In Novasep Process, we have found a valuable partner with whom to develop this technology." Jerome Le Roux, president of Industrial Biotech at Novasep, said: "This cooperation will contribute greatly to the development of innovative purification technologies to improve the quality and lower the manufacturing costs of functional food ingredients. "With Friesland Foods Domo as a world leading ingredient supplier, Novasep Process is getting closer to the final product to better understand market requirements." A particular area of interest in the new joint venture is infant nutrition, focussing on ingredients such as galacto oligosaccharides, a functional supplement for baby formula because of its soothing effect on the stomach. Dutch company Friesland Foods Demo is an international company that develops, produces and markets whey and milk-based ingredients, as well as nutritional fruit-based drinks and ingredients. It supplies these to infant nutrition, food and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. France-based Novasep Process specialises in solving purification challenges for the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and industrial biotech markets. It offers laboratory purification equipment as well as large-scale industrial production plants for producing pure products. Friesland Foods Domo's expertise on dairy ingredients combined with Novasep Process's technological knowledge will create a strong technology platform for functional food product innovation and growth. Friesland Foods Domo has been expanding this year. In September, it invested €6m in its whey protein plant in Workum, The Netherlands, allowing it to increase production of infant formula ingredients and produce its new low-fat ingredient for dairy applications. A major element of the modernisation of the factory was the construction of a new production line to make DOMO Hiprotal 60MP, a range of whey protein concentrates for low fat yoghurt developed in collaboration with Nandi Proteins. The company told Food Navigator it is growing in the are concerning whey and milk-based ingredients, and sees itself as a more and more important player in the market. In July, it finalised a partnership with Australian company Warrnambook, which has seen the development of a €30m factory producing whey-based ingredients for the worldwide food and infant nutrition market. This new factory will be one of the sites Friesland Foods Domo and Novasep Process will work together on, as well as on Friesland's production facility in Bedum, Sweden.
