“Making protein more accessible”: Arla Foods Ingredients CEO flags R&D capabilities amid center launch

08 Oct 2021 --- A new Arla Foods Ingredients innovation center has opened its doors today, which will see development of the company’s capabilities in dairy and whey ingredients. The move coincides with the company becoming the first supplier with a capacity for commercial production of pure beta-lactoglobulin (BLG).

Based in Nr. Vium in Denmark, the center boasts modern facilities, including laboratories, pilot plants and offices. With a total footprint of approximately 9,000 meters squared, the innovation center will be home to 60 to 80 Arla Foods Ingredients scientists. It will also expand the company’s capability and ability to run more experiments.

As well as developing new dairy and whey ingredients for food, sports nutrition and infant nutrition, the center will provide testing materials for clinical trials.

Growing interest in protein
According to CEO Henrik Andersen, interest in protein is as strong as it has ever been. “It started in the US and then spread to Europe,” he tells FoodIngredientsFirst. 

Based in Nr. Vium in Denmark, the new center boasts modern facilities, including laboratories, pilot plant and offices.“Now we see it very strongly in Latin America, and it’s coming to China and Japan too. It’s a global trend that everybody is looking for smarter ways to consume the protein that they want, and suits their lifestyle.”

In many ways, consumers in industrialized regions already get the proteins they need. But they don’t get it at the right point in time, so they tend to get too much in the evening, too little for breakfast and too little for lunch, he explains. 

As a result, the company is “capitalizing on customers who try to make protein more available during the day.”

Of course, protein products that capitalize on building muscle mass after exercise is also part of the picture. “But today, it’s a lot about making the protein more accessible to the consumer.”

Prioritizing proximity
The center is near Danmark Protein, Arla Foods Ingredients’ flagship production plant, and the many farmers who produce the milk the company uses.

This will allow the company to be close to its raw materials and quickly scale them up to commercial production. 

The company’s international scientists will be within 100 meters of the pilot plant production team and will go from a few grams in the lab to metric tons within a few months. 

A hub for collaboration
The center is designed to create synergies between leading university researchers, Ph.D. students and international industry professionals. 

Partners will include academic institutions like the Copenhagen and Aarhus universities in Denmark and UC Davis in California and technology suppliers.

Innovation at Arla Foods Ingredients can be described as “the practical implementation of new, good ideas in a way that creates significant value,” the company underscores. 

Three phases define the innovation process:

• Discover where it comes up with the core idea and assess its potential.

• Develop where it refines the processes for the new ingredient.

• Deploy where it optimizes and scales the ingredient in the production.

Eyeing a new protein category“Open innovation” is part of Arla Foods Ingredients’ strategy. 
Arla Foods Ingredients has also become the first supplier with the capacity to produce pure BLG commercially.

Launched today at the innovation center, Lacprodan BLG-100 offers a unique nutritional profile. Produced using a patented new separation technology, it contains 45% more leucine – the primary muscle-building amino acid – than commercially available whey protein isolates, says the company.

Commenting on the launch, Andersen says the BLG ingredient is an entirely pure whey protein. “It’s a new processing technology to produce whey protein. Usually, you make whey protein concentrate by way of filtration.”

“This is very different because we have found a way to crystallize the protein,” he continues. 

“That means that you get something that is completely pure – 99.9% protein. You can compare it to the way sugar is produced, where the molecules crystalize and precipitate.”

“In a normal whey protein concentrate, you would have 80 or 90% protein and then some sugars, fats and minerals. All of that, we get rid of in the crystallization process.”

Andersen says this offers a lot of benefits, particularly for taste.

“The purity makes it easier to formulate, and you also have a solid composition of the amino acids in these proteins that crystallize. So many people go to the gym because they want to get the best results out of the training that they do, and when you consume protein after exercise, what you want to have is to have a lot of leucine.”

Potency and palatability for medical nutrition
In addition to BLG’s naturally high leucine content, it provides 26% more essential amino acids (EAAs) and 40% more branched-chain amino acids than commercially available whey protein. It also offers a better taste than leucine as a single amino acid.

Consuming high-quality protein in sufficient amounts is a key nutritional need for patients and elderly people. The high leucine content of Lacprodan BLG-100 means it can support muscle protein synthesis to minimize the loss of muscle mass and sustain physical mobility.

Lacprodan BLG-100 is ideal for clear RTD beverages, and powder shakes.Additionally, it provides a more appealing taste than other commercially available proteins, encouraging compliance with nutritional regimes. It is also low in minerals, especially phosphorous, making it suitable for patients with kidney problems.

Lacprodan BLG-100 enables very high protein concentrations (as high as 23%) in very small ready-to-drink serving sizes. Its medical nutrition applications include clear ready-to-drink (RTD) formats and translucent high-protein shots.

Game-changers for nutrition?
Arla Foods Ingredients has applied for Lacprodan BLG-100 to become authorized as a novel food in the EU.

Last month, Arla Foods Ingredients unveiled Lacprodan Premium MFGM-10, a dry-blend version of its milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) ingredient. It is marketed as allowing infant formula manufacturers to reduce energy usage and production costs without compromising safety or quality.

Earlier this year, the company’s whey protein hydrolysate ingredient, WPH Lacprodan DI-3091 was toured to help overcome taste issues in medical and nutritional supplements for patients with maldigestion or malabsorption.

Edited by Elizabeth Green, with additional reporting from Missy Green