Arla’s “Pure Dairy” campaign raises the bar on dairy ingredients

04 Sep 2017 --- Arla Foods Ingredients has launched a new campaign called “Pure Dairy” to highlight how its range of Nutrilac dairy ingredients satisfies growing consumer demand for natural products with clean labels. Research shows that more than one-third of shoppers in the EU (35 percent) are proactively avoiding food and drink products that contain artificial additives or preservatives, while the same proportion says they regularly check the ingredients list on the pack.

Furthermore, 34 percent of EU consumers say they would never buy food that contains genetically modified ingredients.

The new Pure Dairy campaign underlines how Arla Foods Ingredients’ portfolio of natural solutions for dairy products are made from whey proteins extracted from milk that is produced by grass-fed cows, hormone-free, non-GMO and free of antibiotic and pesticide traces.

To illustrate how processors and brands can tap into Pure Dairy, Arla Foods Ingredients has created a new high-protein drinking yogurt recipe that contains just five ingredients – Nutrilac YO-8075, sugar, cream, skimmed milk and fruit preparation. Total protein content is 9.5 percent, with just 95 calories per 100g and only 1.37 percent fat. The drink is the perfect template for formulating Pure Dairy products that will resonate with consumers.

FoodIngredientsFirst spoke with Torben Jensen, Senior Category Manager for Fresh Dairy Products at Arla Foods Ingredients, who said: “Many consumers today look twice when choosing which dairy products to buy from the local store. While yogurts, cheese and dairy desserts are still seen as naturally healthy, they may contain additives or other components that people want to avoid.”

“Our 'Pure Dairy' campaign highlights that our dairy ingredients address all of the concerns that shoppers have. So if you’re a dairy manufacturer looking to hold consumer attention, a clean label with all-natural ingredients is the way to go.”

Arla Foods Ingredients’ Nutrilac solutions for dairy products deliver multiple functionalities, including customized texture, creaminess, stability and in some cases higher yield, all without the need for non-dairy additives. They offer reduced syneresis, a mild and clean taste, and a pleasant and easily drinkable viscosity. They are suitable for use in applications such as drinking and stirred yogurts, cream and cottage cheeses, low-fat traditional cheese and quark desserts.

“At Arla Foods Ingredients, we always try to launch concepts with topics that are relevant and which are growing in popularity, in the market,” explains Jensen. “We always seek to provide clean label Pure Dairy ingredients to the dairy industry and as we have seen there is a strong trend for this. We want to provide cleaner labels for the producers; in some cases, it is in new application areas and in others it is in products that we have been selling for quite some time, such as mainstream dairy products which you can buy in normal supermarkets.” 

Consumers are more aware of what they are buying and that is an ever growing trend. More people are reading packaging labels and if they see E numbers or similar, there is less of a desire to repeat the purchase,” he notes. 

“Another trend we see growing is the trend for high protein products. At the same time, consumers want clean label but they also want high protein and this has been growing over the past five years,” adds Jensen. 

In the sports nutrition space, high-protein and clean label come hand in hand. According to Jensen, sports nutrition is something that will also grow to become mainstream but it needs time to mature. 

“Many sports people are aware of the benefits of adding whey protein to their diets, but in the future, I believe many consumers will be aware of whey protein and the fact that is it beneficial to daily diets. At the moment, it is mainly the sports nutrition sector where it is high, but I do believe that this could change within a few years.”

“Another trend to be aware of is convenience dairy, especially on-the-go formats,” says Jensen. “We are seeing a higher growth rate for drinkable products – this is because they are easy to consume when out and about, or on the way to work so high protein drinkable dairy is a space where there is a lot of potential for growth.”

“Pure Dairy” ingredients can replace other additives and then make it possible for the food industry to make clean on-pack claims.

“It is an ongoing task for us as a dairy ingredient supplier, to be able to support the industry with 'Pure Dairy' ingredients so that is something we are continuously working on,” Jensen concludes.

By Elizabeth Green