KEY INTERVIEW: Dutch Company TOP Pursues Ambient Product Shelf Life Innovation

27 Jun 2016 --- It is ten years since Dutch product development, process design and innovation management company TOP was founded. A decade of innovation has led to products such as meat replacement Beeter (Plenti), and technologies including Active Modified Atmosphere Packaging (AMAP). TOP was started in 2006 by Wouter de Heij, Frank Giezen, Bert Tournois and Herman Feil, who, in the course of their work at Wageningen University, saw a gap between the research department and the food industry and founded TOP as a result.

Wouter de Heij, the CEO of TOP (pictured) who spoke to FoodIngredientsFirst, explained: “TOP takes fundamental research and translates it into innovation that can be implemented and used in the industry. So no reports, but actual machines, actual processes and actual products. Ten years later, I can say that we have managed to achieve that goal.”

TOP’s technological developments have also included PurePulse, which gives chilled products a longer shelf life without losing the fresh taste and natural nutrients. De Heij explains: “It’s a technology where we use electrical pulses in order to inactivate bacteria. Instead of applying heat to a product, we apply an electric field that perforates the membrane of the bacteria, giving a longer shelf life without heating. So this enables us to make, for example, fresh orange juice, which tastes exactly like freshly pressed juice up to approximately three weeks.” 

However, de Heij indicates that as yet, there are no technological tools on the market to improve the shelf life of ambient stable products. “These are still overcooked products in a jar or can with almost no flavor, texture or color," he says. “We believe that there are technology opportunities to change this, to improve this. So we will be working to upscale these technologies from lab scale up to industrial scale, which is a long road. However, we’re investing in it now to enable producers of, for example, canned vegetables, sauces or soups, to offer the quality of what you would see in the fridge, of pasteurized products. This will also be possible for non-acidic products, because we will be able to kill spores with these new technologies. This is still in the first area of development, but it will have our attention for the coming years.” 

TOP hopes to ensure higher quality and a longer shelf life for ambient stable products through innovation in Radio Frequency Sterilization. “We use radio waves, similar to microwaves, but with a wider frequency. This enables us to heat up products more equally from the center to the outside, thereby applying less heat to the product and resulting in higher quality. Reducing the heat will allow the product to retain its nutrients, color, texture and flavor. Everything is better than when you have to bring it up to 121 degrees Celsius, keep it there and bring it down in a classical way. You lose quality, flavor, texture, nutrients. So with this is a technology we’re aiming to make an ambient stable product, instead of through classical heat sterilization,” de Heij says.

With a new technology come new regulatory hurdles. De Heij foresees challenges in obtaining FDA approval, though overall he is optimistic. “We have seen the same with the technologies we developed with chilled products, so it will be no different when we work with ambient stable products.” The proof will be in the final result, with assurances of safety obviously being the most important. “Because,” de Heij explains, “you’re talking about spores of bacteria which can grow out and make toxins. And it has a long shelf life to do so. For example, the bacteria Clostridium Botulinum is a typical bacteria which can grow in non-acidic canned products without oxygen, they can grow very easily. So if they are present, you have a problem. Therefore you need to reach the temperature to kill those microbes. However, how you reach it and how much energy you need to get to that threshold can be improved by using, for example, the Radio Frequency technology, but also another technique we’ll work on, which is called Pressure Assisted Thermal Sterilization (PATS).” 

PATS will combine High Pressure Processing (HPP), where pressure is applied to a product in order to inactivate organisms, with higher temperatures. “With this technology, we will raise the temperature up to, for example, 85°C before we apply pressure. Due to the pressure, the temperature rises further, up to about 118°C. After the required holding time, the pressure is dropped and the temperature immediately drops back to 85°C. Then you cool it down. This is a temperature curve which is thinner than classical retort processing. This way, you will have less heat impact on the product and better quality in the end.”

De Heij emphasizes that developing and integrating these technologies require a long investment from all parties. “These kinds of disruptive technologies take time. It takes time to develop, to get approved, but also it needs time for companies to accept it, because they already have machines which help them with the same needs but without the benefits of better quality. It also requires a lot of energy from us, they are not “plug and play,” in the first period: you need time to adjust it a little, to make sure everything works as it should.”

TOP’s future is bright, according to de Heij, with companies within the food industry finding them more easily as their technologies and products gain traction. One goal TOP does not have, however, is to grow as a company. “I think our innovative power is that we are not that big,” de Heij explains. “Our strength is that we are flexible and that we can think with the producers, think like them as an SME. So we need to stay small and flexible. If you grow to more than 30 employees, you need extra procedures and management layers and this kills innovation.” 

De Heij reveals that another advantage to staying small is that the company can cherry pick their projects, matching them with the vision and mission of TOP’s future. This mission includes a contribution to the environment, through the use of renewable energy in all projects and a project involving the upscaling of waste streams. “A lot of food is now thrown away, or used as fertilizer, or fuel by making biogas out of it,” de Heij says. “So we are also focusing on upstreaming waste. Instead of throwing away the scraps of carrots in the industry, we want to process it to one part fibers and one part vital nutrients. For example, beta carotene as a colorant for in the food industry or as an antioxidant for in the supplement industry. We want to make sure that food stays food and that everything we make is properly used.” 

As such, TOP is working on a technology to extract these components separately out of waste streams, making sure that every component which has value is taken out of what is now thrown away. “This is called VitaNext,” de Heij shares. “This is to make sure that there are tools in the future that make it commercially possible to extract all the components which have value for the food industry.” VitaNext is still on the lab scale, and is not yet available on the industrial scale.

Aside from sustainability, de Heij says Top will continue to develop products and equipment for clients as well as expand their company group, which already includes the meat replacement company responsible for Beeter (Plenti). “Our mission or vision for the coming years will also focus on new chances for products which are now not so normal. Ten years ago we worked with meat replacers, which is now pretty common. So what is the next thing? There’s a lot of talk now about meat grown in labs. However, I think this technology will not go anywhere in the short/medium term as the meat replacement industry is moving much faster. If you see that now it’s already possible to make chicken-like products made from soy, I’m pretty sure it will be possible in a few years to make steaks and burgers from plant based materials.”

By Liesbeth Thijssen