Broadcast on April 17 and available on demand thereafter, Pushing the envelope of functional dairy innovation will bring you an interview with Danone North America’s vice-president of scientific affairs Miguel Freitas, PhD followed by a lively panel discussion.
Hosted by DairyReporter editor Teodora Lyubomirova, panelists Aidan Fitzsimmons, CEO of AnaBio Technologies Limited, and Joe Rotondo, Founder of Smearcase Frozen Cottage Cheese Ice Cream delved into what makes functional dairy such a promising category; how companies are addressing consumer demands for cleaner ingredient labels and health benefits, from protein to metabolic health; and what’s to come within the category in the next year.
The panel
Aidan Fitzsimmons, PhD, CEO, AnaBio Technologies
“I originally have a science background – I would come from a micro and genetics technical background [and] I worked most of my career in the dairy ingredient sector in a variety of roles, starting with R&D, moving into technical sales, commercial, and then ran a number of businesses in the UK and France.
“[At AnaBio], what we do is we encapsulate probiotics. A typical product that a client might produce is a long life beverage in which our technology enables you to have an aseptic long life beverage that can be stored at room temperature over a shelf life of up to 12 months, but contains live probiotics. What our technology does is it moves that into the supermarket shelf out of the fridge, and allows much more convenience.”
Joe Rotondo, Founder, Smearcase
“I was training for my very first marathon, and after one of my toughest workouts, I found myself craving ice cream. I just couldn’t find an ice cream that fit my lifestyle, so I decided to go home and try to solve for this myself.
“In less than a year, we’ve grown into about 100 stores in New York and New Jersey, the tri-state area, as well as Florida, we have launches in Sprouts and Whole Foods, and customers just immediately understand our mission.”
The panel discussed:
- What health and functional benefits consumers are seeking from dairy products today;
- How important is brand and product differentiation in what is becoming an increasingly saturated market;
- How manufacturers should approach label claims; and
- What key developments our panelists expect to see within the category over the next year.
Also broadcast on the day will be an interview with Danone’s Miguel Freitas, PhD, who offered expert insights on the latest probiotic and prebiotic research and its scope to advance functional dairy innovation; how chronic metabolic diseases impact the gut; how yogurt is helping to support patients on GLP-1 medications, and much more beyond.
Broadcast on April 17 at 16:00 CEST / 15:00 BST / 10:00 ET, the webinar is free to view for and can be watched on-demand, so make sure you register to gain access.
For now, we give you a flavor of what went on and some of the points raised by our panelists . . .
On consumer trends driving the category . . .
“I think consumers are moving in a direction of wanting more nutritional value, getting a better bang for your buck. And that is in the macros of the nutritional label, but also the ingredient list of the nutritional label: you want clean ingredients, you want beneficial macros.”
– Joe Rotondo
“I would say the consumer has graduated from weight management – I think metabolic health is much broader. That whole area of energy, of concentration, sleep and mood – consumers are more and more beginning to link that to their food choices.”
– Aidan Fitzsimmons, PhD
On functional ingredients entering dairy and categories such as ice cream . . .
“It’s cool to see probiotics enter the ice cream world. But then also, outside of dairy, the biggest mover of probiotics in our culture are brands like Olipop and Poppi, bringing probiotics to soda, making soda functional. And I think when brands do it in that fun, easy to consume way, the younger generations are really grasping that.
– Joe Rotondo
On regulations and labeling . . .
“There is an awful lot of scientific evidence out there on the health benefits of probiotics, what you can communicate on a label very much depends on what country you’re operating in . . . The priority for the food industry should be to inform the consumer and give the consumer real honest, fact-based information that allows the consumer to make a choice. And in many geographies, food manufacturers are highly restricted.”
– Aidan Fitzsimmons, PhD
To hear the entire discussion, register now and join us on April 17.
