KEY INTERVIEW: Fonterra: Interest in Sports Nutrition Continues to Grow in Europe

25 Jan 2016 --- NutritionInsight spoke to Hans Huistra, Regional Director Ingredients – EMEA, about Fonterra’s European focus and bringing sports nutrition to the forefront of nutritional supplements.

Fonterra has seen good European growth over the past year, with increasing focus on sports and infant nutrition, but Hans believes that sports nutrition will continue to grow and gather interest, from increasingly mainstream sectors.

Huistra told us; “It’s been a very exciting time for us. Fonterra have had two new factories open in Europe in the past year – a state of the art whey ingredient factory in Heerenveen, the Netherlands, as well as a paediatric ingredient factory in partnership with Dairy Crest in the UK. This has given us a stronger footprint in Europe to better serve our customer base and meet growing consumer demand for quality ingredients in the sports and infant nutrition markets.”

He believes the potential for sports nutrition in Europe is great and that this interest will only continue to grow over the next few years.

“The European sports nutrition market continues to demonstrate growth and this trend is expected to continue in the next couple of years (with CAGR estimated at 5.5%; 2014-2019). Growth is primarily driven by an increase of health consciousness and exercise participation, which has resulted in mainstream consumers entering the sports nutrition category.”

“These mainstream consumers demand a different type of product compared to the typical sports nutrition consumer; they want a great tasting product, available in multiple flavours and convenient ‘on the go’ formats. In addition, consumer awareness of protein benefits is also slowly increasing – it’s no longer reserved for the sports athletes, and we have witnessed a strong increase of more mainstream high protein product launches that are positioned to support an active lifestyle.”

Huistra believes there is continuing great potential for the enriched protein market with regards to sports nutrition and particularly those in slightly different formats to more traditional whey supplements.

“We see a strong potential for whey protein enriched ready-to-drink beverages in the sports, medical and active nutrition markets, driven by consumers’ need for great tasting, nutritional and convenient products.”

“In the past, whey options were largely limited to powdered products. Delivering the benefits of whey protein into compact, shelf stable and flavoursome ready-to-drink beverages has been a significant technical challenge. This is because ready to drink beverages are subjected to high heat treatments during processing to ensure product safety and extended shelf life. However, the thermal treatments applied to liquid formulations containing traditional whey protein ingredients can cause unwanted sensorial attributes, like chalkiness, lumpiness or sedimentation during shelf life. This is a key area where our new SureProtein™ whey protein solutions are better able to deliver and support, enabling formulators and marketers to unlock this potential.”

Vital WPC550, which falls under the SureProtein range, is a specialty microparticulated whey ingredient with a protein content of 80%. Benefits of formulating with Vital WPC 550 into liquid nutritional formulations include heat and acid stability, while maintaining low viscosity and good flavour.

“The SureProtein™ portfolio is the largest range of dairy protein ingredients available in the world. It includes the full range of high quality nutritional protein ingredients, comprising of whey protein concentrates and isolates, milk protein concentrates and isolates, as well as casein and caseinates.”

Fonterra has exciting plans in the pipeline for the future of protein products, with Hans explaining; “We are currently broadening our functional whey protein offerings, which will open up new opportunities in the expanding range of high protein formats.”

“We have recently started producing a unique ingredient at our Heerenveen factory, SureProtein™ Flex WPC 515, which helps produce soft and shelf-stable sports bars and great tasting, high-protein low-viscosity yoghurts.”

So for many professional and mainstream athletes whose motto is new year, new leaf, Fonterra may have just the products to help them achieve their goals.

By Coriander Stone