In the UK, Mars has reformulated its Mars bars as well as its Snickers, Milky Way and Topic bars with 15 per cent less saturated fat per bar compared to the old recipes. The new versions will go on sale in September.

Meanwhile, in France over the summer Mars began to put new versions of its Snickers, Mars and Milky Way products on sale with 15 to 20 per cent less saturated fat.

Mars said the new recipes were the result of a €10m investment in research and development over a period of five years.

Formulation changes

Explaining how the recipe changes were made, Mars Chocolat France said it kept the coating of its bars the same but changed the proportions of fat used in the nougat and caramel inside the bars.

The company said the key to this was switching wherever possible from palm oil, which is rich in saturated fatty acids, to sunflower oil, which is richer in unsaturated fatty acids.

Nutritional commitments

Mars said the changes to the fat profile are the latest step on its ongoing pledge to improve the nutritional composition of its products. This has previously resulted in commitments to eradicate artificial colours and flavours, minimise trans fatty acids and introduce clear information on Daily Recommended Allowances and front of pack labelling.

When the fat changes in France were first announced, Thierry Gaillard, managing director of Mars Chocolat France, said: “It’s not about selling more products but about doing what’s necessary: staying faithful to our commitment to improve the nutritional quality of our products wherever and whenever we can.”

Meanwhile, in the UK, the reformulation of the Mars chocolate bars comes after the Food Standards Agency (FSA) challenged food manufacturers in the spring to reduce the saturated fat content of chocolate confectionery by at least 10 per cent by the end of 2012.

Originating from the silage that cows eat, C. tyrobutyricum is a significant problem for cheese makers, especially manufacturers of hard or semi-hard cheeses. Even small amounts can produce butyric acid, which gives off a rancid taste, and result in an excess build-up of carbon dioxide causing cracks to emerge.

Writing in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, scientists from the Institute for Food Research (IFR) claim to have identified and characterised a microorganism that specifically attacks the contaminant.

They concentrated their work on a bacteriophage (a type of virus that infects bacteria) called ΦCTP1. This produces a protein, called an endolysin, which recognises C. tyrobutyricum and breaks open its cells from the inside.

By sequencing the genome of endolysin, identifying the gene encoding it and then expressing this gene in E. coli, IFR research leader Arjan Narbad told DairyReporter.com that the team was able to produce endolysin and introduce it to break down C. tyrobutyricum from the outside.

Highly specific

In laboratory trials and in milk, Narbad said endolysin proved to be effective in reducing levels of C. tyrobutyricum and importantly their research suggests that it is highly specific. This means that using endolysin to control the bacteria may not interfere with the bacteria that ferment the cheese.

To develop the technology further, Narbad said there are two potential possibilities. Firstly, endolysin can be made in the lab and then added in the cheese making process in place of lysozume, which is often used to control C. tyrobutyricum contamination but with some concerns about resistance.

Secondly, endolysin could be expressed in Lactococcus lactis, the bacterium involved in the cheese fermentation process. This would ensure that the endolysin can be produced in situ during cheese production but would make the resulting cheese a GM products.

In any case the next step is to test the endolysin technology in the cheese manufacturing process. To do this Narbad said the IFR team plans to complete trials with Dr Margarita Medina at Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA) in Spain.

Source: Applied and Environmental Microbiology
doi:10.1128/AEM.00989-10
Genomic sequence and characterisation of the virulent 1 bacteriophage ΦCTP1 from Clostridium tyrobutyricum and heterologous expression of its endolysin
Authors: Melinda J. Mayer, John Payne, Michael J. Gasson, and Arjan Narbad

Food manufacturers have benefitted from a rise in at-home eating, as US consumers cut down on restaurant meals in favor of convenient prepared foods for home consumption, but many have assumed that consumers would go back to eating at restaurants more once the economy recovers.

According to the NPD Group’s new report examining the US foodservice industry, entitled A Look into the Future of Foodservice, restaurant visits are likely to increase at a rate of 1.1 percent a year over the next decade – a slower rate than population growth.

The report’s author and NPD’s restaurant industry analyst Bonnie Riggs said this trend is largely due to the effect of an aging population, as older consumers tend to be less frequent restaurant users.

“In addition to being hit hard by the recession, Americans are eating more suppers at home, and fewer women entering the workforce have negatively impacted restaurant industry traffic,” Riggs said. “…There isn’t much that can be done about the aging of the population and population growth.”

She said that trend momentum – which tracks factors like new menu items, promotions, and restaurant openings and closures – has been unfavorable for the restaurant industry over the past nine years, but that the restaurant industry could still change the direction of the forecast.

Riggs said: “Forecasts are something to be worked against, but are not cast in stone. They are used to assess potential opportunities and risks for the purpose of long-term planning. The future course can be altered.”

This is not the first time that it has been suggested that increased eating at home is likely to continue even as the economy recovers.

A survey commissioned by ConAgra and carried out at the end of March, questioned 1,018 adults nationwide about their grocery shopping and eating habits, and found that many consumers intend to continue cooking at home, using coupons and bargain-hunting.

Around half of food safety trainers surveyed indicated that food safety training had been negatively affected by the economic climate, with 70 per cent of respondents noting that this was due to ‘cost cutting’ measures.

“This survey is cause for concern and if this trend continues public health could be put at risk – potentially triggering a food poisoning time bomb,” said David Kidney, CIEH Head of Policy.

“Proper instruction or training of food handlers in food hygiene is a legal obligation and businesses must ensure that their staff have the skills to ensure the health and wellbeing of the customers they serve,” he added.

The CIEH conducted the survey in the second week of August and it was sent to 5,000 food safety trainers and training centres.

“The economic downturn has meant many businesses have had to rein in spending, which is understandable, but quality training needs to be seen as an investment which protects your staff, your business and your company’s reputation,” said Kidney. “A food poisoning outbreak can be the death knell for a food business and can have a myriad of consequences from reputational damage to business failure.

Online

Kidney hit out at online training and training solutions, stating that they were often “not necessarily be accurate and up-to-date”. “Anyone can set up a food safety training business online and sell a course to public,” he added.

“Make sure the course you choose is fit for your purpose and that you are not wasting your precious resources on cowboy companies.”

The application – lodged by the Lincolnshire Sausage Association (LSA) – stipulates that manufacturers wishing to use the Lincolnshire Sausage name must be based in Lincolnshire and adhere to a strict recipe containing at least 70% meat.

But this would exclude manufacturers accounting for the vast bulk of sales, claimed Samworth Bros subsidiary Walkers Midshire Foods, one of the businesses that will lose the right to use the Lincolnshire Sausage name on its products if the PGI application is successful.

The firm, which makes sausages and cooked meats for the supermarkets at its factory in Cobden Street industrial estate in Leicester, told FoodManufacture.co.uk that it had been making Lincolnshire Sausages for years, and claimed that all of the major multiples sourced their Lincolnshire sausage from outside Lincolnshire.

Md Steve Crawford added: “To me, Lincolnshire Sausages are like Cheddar cheese or Yorkshire Puddings, they are too generic for this kind of application, and the vast majority are not made in Lincolnshire.

“The recipe as defined in the application is also not a quality product – ours contains 80-85% meat for example – and to me they haven’t properly demonstrated a link between the product and the area as set out in the PGI application criteria.”

The application is currently in the hands of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), which must now decide whether or not to give it the green light and forward it to the European Commission. A decision is expected next month.

If DEFRA gives it the thumbs up, other EU Member States will then have six months to lodge objections, with formal protection granted six months after that. There would then be a ‘grace’ period before companies making Lincolnshire Sausages that do not meet the PGI criteria will have to rebadge products.

LSA: “Very optimistic”

LSA chairman Janet Godfrey said she was “very optimistic” that the application would ultimately succeed if it were supported by DEFRA as she did not anticipate opposition from other Member States.

She added: “We are doing this to support local producers and for the tourist market. People do come here to buy the sausages.”

She also disputed Crawford’s claim that 95% of the sausages were made outside the PGI region, adding: “The TNS data underestimates sales within the county [of Lincolnshire]. We also dispute the TNS definition of Lincolnshire Sausage.

“The fact that Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda source their Lincolnshire Sausages from outside Lincolnshire is why we have registered the application.”

Meanwhile, Walkers’ objections were “hypocritical” given that parent company Samworth had backed applications for Melton Mowbray pork pies and the Cornish Pasty, she said, a claim firmly rejected by Crawford, who said the above applications were “not comparable” as most Melton Mowbray pork pies for example had always been produced in Melton Mowbray.

He added: “We have raised our concerns with DEFRA and we believe it is taking them seriously.”

A DEFRA spokeswoman said: “We will look at all of the evidence provided by those applying for the status, as well as any objections, before making a decision on submitting the application to the Commission for consideration.”

EU protected name schemes

There are three EU protected names schemes:

• Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) - where the product must be produced AND processed AND prepared in a specific geographical area.
• Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) – where the product must be produced OR processed OR prepared in the geographical area.
• Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) - open to products, which are traditional or have customary names and have a set of features not due to the geographical area the product is produced in.

Italy and France have considerably more protected name registrations than any other Member State, accounting for 40% of all PDO and PGI registrations. The UK accounts for about 9% of registrations.

Associate professor Kevin Keener, of Purdue University in Indiana, said the fast cooling of eggs after laying and processing would “significantly reduce the ability of salmonella to grow inside the egg and potentially keep consumers from becoming sick”.

Egg recall

The US is currently enacting a recall of at least half a billion eggs as people have been sickened by salmonella across the country.

Keener was quick to point out that ‘natural contamination’ from shell eggs was relatively rare and the current problems were more likely to have arisen because of sanitation failures within the processing environment.

“There is a big discussion right now about how food safety in the US is regulated and cooling eggs is part of that debate,” he told FoodProductionDaily.com.

Six days

Federal guidelines on how quickly eggs should be cooled do not currently exist – but Keener pointed out that under present industry practices, it can take up to six days for eggs to cool to 45F (7C) – the temperature at which salmonella can no longer grow.

Keener said eggs can be more than 100 F (38 C) after washing and packaging in cartons. Thirty dozen eggs are then packed in a case, and 30 cases are stacked onto pallets and placed in refrigerated coolers. The eggs in the middle of the pallet can take up to 142 hours to cool to 45 F degrees. He said scientists estimate that one in about every 20,000 eggs has salmonella naturally inside.

“The eggs in the middle of a pallet may take up to six days to cool, and if the one in 20,000 that has salmonella is in the middle, the bacteria will grow,” Keener said. “In reality, some eggs don’t cool to 45 degrees until they’re in the refrigerator in your home.”

Salmonella reduction

By contrast, the food safety expert said the rapid cooling technology he and colleagues have been developing and refining over the past dozen years takes just 90 seconds.

“Studies from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) show that if eggs were cooled and stored at 45 degrees or less within 12 hours of laying, there would be an estimated 78 per cent fewer salmonella illnesses from eggs in the United States each year,” he added.

He said he believed his system was unique but added alternative solutions had been developed.

Commercialisation

Keener said the system could be easily adapted for large-scale egg production and he is seeking a commercial partner to enable him to do this. He estimates treatment with the technology would cost between two and five cents per dozen eggs for a large producer but would not slow processing speeds and result in a near-doubling of egg shelf life.

“The technology extends shelf life from the basic 6-8 weeks to 12-15 weeks depending on how the eggs are stored,” said Keener. “This extension would make the process commercially viable as the shelf life would be such that producers would have the potential to export.”

This was the general consensus of development chefs, new product development (NPD) managers and interim/freelance NPD specialists contacted by FoodManufacture.co.uk following Clarke’s admission that Asda had not been as focused on “food values and food quality” as it might have been.

While some observers believe Clarke’s admission was a PR gaffe, one consultant that has worked with all of the major multiples on premium own-label ranges said his honesty was “refreshing”.

He added: “At long last we’ve got a chief executive that’s said publicly what most of the industry thinks privately. They call the range Extra Special, but it’s not. Not only does it lag the competition but there is not really much of a differential between the spec for their standard products and some Extra Special lines.

“I personally think that the quality has gone backwards in some areas – they are behind where they were five years ago. The aspiration is there but you can’t ask for M&S quality at Asda prices, which is what they are asking for. Something has to give.”

He added: “Asda has done some interesting things, it’s launched ready-to-cook microwaveable bagged meals, which is conceptually a very good idea, for example. But in general, I think it has let itself down over the past two or three years and in many areas it is well behind the competition.”

Waitrose now retailer to beat in quality pecking order?

In quality terms, Waitrose was now the retailer to beat, although manufacturers still typically benchmarked products against Marks & Spencer in chilled food, claimed another industry source.

“Waitrose has recognised that what consumers are looking for at the premium end of the market are freshness cues, interaction, great recipe composition and great packaging. But Tesco has also raised its game recently, especially in Finest.”

One development chef that has worked with own-label suppliers to all of the leading supermarkets said: “The quality of Asda’s own-label range is under par in some areas, but its aim is to be the cheapest, and if you want to be the cheapest, you have to make compromises.”

He added: “When I last went to the head office, I was given a badge saying something like ‘I’m here to make goods and services more affordable’, that’s the mentality of the company.”

Another development chef said: “The quality of Asda’s range is quite variable – it really depends on the product category – on Indian sauces, for example, they have tried to go down the authenticity route on Extra Special but I am not sure they have got it right for the UK palate. Some of the products are actually quite inedible in my view.

“But on chilled ready meals, they are not bad at all.”

One consultant that has worked with several leading branded and own-label manufacturers, added: “I think they have taken their eyes off the ball; they are just a bit off the pace compared with the competition.

“As for the pecking order, I’d say in convenience meals, it’s M&S, Waitrose, then Sainsbury, then Tesco. Then you’ve got Asda.”

Asda: “exciting” new products in the pipeline

Asda, which has seen its market share dip slightly (0.3%) in the 12 weeks to July 11 according to Kantar Worldpanel, said its range would soon be refreshed with some “exciting” new products.

A spokesman added: “We love our food and are proud of the products we sell, but you don’t get anywhere standing still.

“That’s why we’re very excited by the work we’ve been doing behind the scenes this year, much of which is going to be available to see in our stores very soon. So it’s a case of watch this space.”