Public Funding for Arla Foods Limited

The heat exchangers used in raw milk pasteurisation suffer from progressive fouling and must be cleaned regularly. Cleaning is the main cause of non-productive energy consumption in a dairy, and the water and chemicals used in cleaning must be handled as effluent. This project aims to increase the time between cleans without affecting the microbiology or taste of the milk by developing a full understanding of the factors which affect deposit formation and balancing these against novel ways to remove or reduce the deposit. Through advanced mathematical modelling, new holistic strategies will be developed and subsequently tested on pilot and full-scale milk pasteurisation plants. A reduction in energy, water and chemical usage will follow from a successful project outcome.

The UK consumes 318k tes of cheese in processed foods and 732k tes of cheese annually. The health consequences of this are substantial, as 100g cheddar contains 50% of an adult's recommended daily intake of total fat, 104% of saturated fats, and 25% of sodium. High fat and salt intake have been proven to increase health risks in terms of heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. This project is a collaboration between Greencore, Arla UK, Sheffield Hallam University & ICL to develop a novel micro-formulation technology that will enable the UK food industry to manufacture a healthy cheese product, which performs as well in melting and baking processes as current high fat & salt alternatives. The technology will reduce salt and fat content, by 10% & 20% respectively, in retail cheese, cheese ingredients, and ready meals and has the potential to remove a total of 760 tes of salt & 15.2k tes of fat from the UK food chain pa.

The prevalence of obesity and associated type 2 diabetes has risen dramatically, adversely affecting health and life expectancy and increasing health care costs. There is an urgent need to lower the incidence or delay the onset of both conditions by lifestyle-related interventions. Dietary whey protein acts in the gut to affect satiety and post-meal glucose levels by increasing GLP-1 and insulin release. We aim to identify the whey bioactive(s) and control processing artefacts in order to develop a more potent whey protein supplement/food component. The project involves characterisation of the bioactive(s) via in vitro technologies working with whey protein experts to optimise fractionation of whey adding value to a sometimes waste product. This project is a necessary forerunner to human supplementation studies prior to procedure to EFSA health claims and the development of supplements and food components.