Weekly Roundup: Omya completes French plant expansion, Mane moves for naturalness in ready meals

10 Jul 2020 --- This week in industry news, Omya revealed its newly expanded production plant in Orgon, France, while Mane answered the growing demand for more transparency and naturalness in the chilled ready meals category. Rabobank announced the redesign of its FoodBytes! food and agriculture innovation platform and Wacker spotlighted the improved foaming of barista toppings with its cyclodextrin solution.

In brief: Business
Omya rebuilt and expanded its calcium carbonate production plant in Orgon, France, creating a substantially higher capacity for its functionalized calcium carbonate product platform, a new packaging line and on-site warehouse. The modern facility produces the company’s mineral grades for food and Omya manufactures its products from natural limestone sourced in the surroundings of Orgon, with a low environmental footprint. At the plant, ultrapure calcium carbonate is functionalized by a patented, highly advanced process. The resulting mineral ingredients Omyapharm, Omyafood, Omyanutra, Omyaforte, Omyaskin and Omyadent offer multiple benefits for finished products, facilitate production processes and increase nutritional profiles.

In brief: Appointments & retirements
Chr. Hansen Holding A/S has appointed Lise Skaarup Mortensen as a new Chief Financial Officer. Mortensen (52) is an experienced international leader with a strong track record and a passion for leadership joining a position as CFO at Microsoft Germany. Mortensen also has a strong financial background with many years of experience in large international companies and has been with Microsoft in international senior leadership positions in India and Germany for the past eight years. 

Coca‑Cola HBC AG has announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Naya Kalogeraki to serve in the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer, effective September 1. She will report to Zoran Bogdanovic, Coca‑Cola HBC’s CEO. The company’s two Regional Directors – the Group Commercial Director and the General Managers of the three largest markets of Nigeria, Italy and Russia – will report directly to the COO. The appointment of a new COO will enable Bogdanovic, who has served as CEO since 2017 and as a member of the Board of Directors, with a greater focus on the long term strategic direction of the business, the development of capabilities for the future and the company’s ESG agenda.

In brief: Other highlightsMane is answering the growing demand for more transparency and naturalness in the chilled ready meals category. 
Mane is answering the growing demand for more transparency and naturalness in the chilled ready meals category. One of the most appealing improvements that consumers expect from chilled ready meals is that they are “made with only natural ingredients”: 32 percent in the UK, 40 percent in France, 42 percent in Germany and 59 percent in Spain. At the same time, consumers ask for indulgent and traditional recipes. To answer these challenges, Mane has just launched a roasted chicken juice and roasted onion juice in powder form. These ingredients are 100 percent natural, concentrated and made with fresh raw materials. They are easy to use and deliver an authentic, roasted culinary taste to processed meat, sauces or juices. The taste solely comes from a singular raw material and its processing. 

Rabobank has announced the redesign of its FoodBytes! food and agriculture innovation platform, which features an expanded star-tup discovery program FoodBytes! Pitch and a reinvented corporate innovation program FoodBytes! Pilot. Start-ups can apply for FoodBytes! Pitch through August 10.Since FoodBytes! launched in 2015, the Dutch bank has hosted 17 total live pitch competitions across North America, Europe and Australia. “Our network has grown to 310 active start-up alumni globally. We want to build a powerful engine for ongoing collaboration and innovation between food and agriculture change agents who want to feed the world sustainably,” says Anne Creven, Global Head of F&A Innovation The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that players in our food and agriculture system must be prepared for constant change and transformation.”. 

Less sugar, natural flavors, and better taste than the competition and their previous line, says Soylent.Soylent Nutrition has rolled out reformulated versions of its beverages. This ready-to-drink product optimization comes on the heels of several of the company’s accomplishments in recent months, including the launches of new powder formats, lowered pricing on powder subscriptions and updated packaging. In the context of flavor, the company has invested in updating, tweaking and testing new, all-natural flavors and lowering the sugar content of its offerings. In blind taste tests, Soylent reports that its new Creamy Chocolate flavor was found to beat its dairy-based competition, while delivering complete plant-based nutrition.

Coffee drinks like cappuccino, latte macchiato and café au lait are characterized by a creamy milk foam. CAVAMAX W6 cyclodextrin from Wacker improves the foaming properties of these barista toppings. Alpha-cyclodextrin (alpha-dextrin for short), which Wacker produces from starch and markets under the CAVAMAX W6 brand, provides a diverse range of properties that greatly enhance the foaming of milk. With this solution, both dairy and plant-based toppings can feature a high foam volume, uniform structure and long-lasting stability. Coffee in all its variations is the preferred beverage not only of Germans – who consume 162 liters each per year, according to the company. Coffee specialties served with a froth of milk are prevalent. Preparing the frothy crown has become an art in itself – “latte art.” 

With pubs and restaurants reopening this week in the UK, Essex-based Wicks Manor is returning to supplying premium pork products to eateries. However, the family business has certainly not been quiet since the beginning of the lockdown. It experienced a surge in demand for its premium bacon and sausages in the Middle East and Asia. During the pandemic, the family farm faced a sharp drop in sales to pubs and restaurants, which typically account for 45 percent of its revenue. Eager to find alternative routes to market, Wicks Manor sought support from the Department for International Trade (DIT), to help the business ramp up its exports to supermarkets in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

In brief: Recognition & awards
Vittel and Ashoka, a non-profit organization promoting social entrepreneurship, has announced the winners of the “Act For Biodiversity” Challenge, a global search for changemakers who can collaborate to preserve and restore biodiversity. The five winning projects, including Health in Harmony, Farming for Nature, Renature, Camino Verde and Forest&Life, will each be awarded a share of €150,000 (US$170,100) and benefit from support within the project accelerator. The projects focus on different impact zones and vary from fighting deforestation and promoting regenerative agroforestry to educational programs. Most of them include a strong element of cooperation with local communities and farmers. Launched in January, the “Act For Biodiversity” Challenge looks for solutions that are already being implemented and engaging people and organizations across sectors to preserve biodiversity. The five winning projects were selected out of more than 200 submissions by a panel of experts on biodiversity.

By Elizabeth Green