Dairy Dialog podcast: Food waste and the Latin American formula market

By Jim Cornall

- Last updated on GMT

Map graphic: ©Getty Images/Harvepino
Map graphic: ©Getty Images/Harvepino

Related tags Aak Frutarom Enzymotec Scotland Infant formula

This week’s Dairy Dialog podcast coincides with Recycle Week 2018 in the UK, and features an interview with Iain Clunie, food and drink program manager at Zero Waste Scotland, and a look at the Latin American infant formula market, with Dr Sigalit Zchut from Advanced Lipids, a joint venture of AAK and Enzymotec, a member of the Frutarom group.

AAK is a global producer and supplier of vegetable fats and oils for the infant formula industry, while Enzymotec is a supplier of specialty lipid-based products and solutions. 

Recycling food waste helps tackle climate change: report

A new report published by Zero Waste Scotland this week to coincide with Recycle Week 2018, shows less waste and more recycling, especially of food waste, are crucial in reducing our carbon impact. 

The Carbon Metric, a tool developed by Zero Waste Scotland, shows how waste reduction and sustainable waste management plays a critical role in the fight against climate change. It measures the whole-life carbon impacts of Scotland’s waste, from resource extraction and manufacturing emissions, right through to waste management emissions, regardless of where in the world these impacts occur.

It shows that, in 2017, Scottish households reduced the amount of waste they produced, and recycled more of their waste than ever, resulting in the lowest carbon impacts for household waste since the Carbon Metric began measuring in 2011. 

For the first time, the Carbon Metric is being integrated directly into the official reporting on Scotland’s household waste data statistics published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), showing the 2017 carbon impacts of household food waste.

Carbon Metric

Zero Waste Scotland also published the 2016 Carbon Metric (with data on both household and commercial and industrial waste).

Findings showed food waste contributes more to Scotland’s waste carbon impacts than any other waste type.

Food waste comprised 16% of household waste in 2017. Despite an overall reduction in household food waste, Scots recycled more food waste than ever before, up 7% on the previous year. In total, Scottish households prevented nearly 100,000 tonnes of food waste from going in the residual waste bin.

The increase in recycling rates is due to more household food waste recycling collections being rolled out by Scotland’s local authorities, waste that can be turned into energy through anaerobic digestion rather than heading to landfill sites where it emits greenhouse gases.

The data also shows while household waste only made up 25% of Scotland’s waste by weight, it accounted for 55% of total waste carbon impacts.

Latin American infant formula market

Advanced Lipids manufactures and markets INFAT, a specialized ingredient for infant formulas, and while China is seen as the holy grail for many infant formula companies, there are other large markets available, including Latin America.

SN-2 palmitate, or OPO, is a fat ingredient that mimics the fatty acid structure of human milk.

INFAT, Advanced Lipids’ SN-2 palmitate product, has been clinically proven in multiple double-blind, randomized control studies, which found infants fed with formula containing INFAT have softer stools, better fat and calcium absorption, better bone matrix parameters, healthier gut bacteria, less crying and more night sleep than those fed on standard formula.

Latin America

The total market for infant formula in Latin America is currently $2.2bn (150,000 metric tonnes in volume) and significant growth is forecast for the next four years. The region is promising territory for some of the world’s biggest formula companies.

The most important market in Latin America is Mexico. The country’s population and GDP are both little more than half the size of Brazil’s, but sales of formula there are higher than anywhere else on the continent.  In 2017, the retail value of infant formula was $843m, with that figure expected to increase to more than $1bn by 2021.

After Mexico, the next biggest market is Colombia, where the average price of formula is highest.

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