Cultures for high-volume cheese makers

Between 2012 and 2017, cheese new product development increased at 15.5% CAGR, says Innova Market Insights. This is attributed to increasing perception of cheese as a natural and healthy snack option, interest in origin, consumer demand for unusual flavours and convenient formats (slices, strings, spreadable).

In Southeast Asia and China alone, the processed cheese market is growing at a CAGR of 3.81% for the period 2016-2022, noted a report from Orbis Research. 

Cheese-making though has its share of production difficulties. Under pressure to operate efficiently, cheese plants are sometimes forced to adjust their process times due to starter cultures that don’t perform consistently, which causes production delays that impact quality and, ultimately, the bottom line. To help address these setbacks, DuPont Nutrition & Health is introducing two new products under its CHOOZIT® range: the CHOOZIT® SWIFT 600 and CHOOZIT® AMERI-FLEX, both of which are label-friendly ingredients and labelled as cultures.

The CHOOZIT® SWIFT 600 cultures are resistant to bacteriophage and rarely impacted by changes in milk or the plant environment. Compared with other cheese cultures on the market, the cultures are formulated for fast and consistent acidification time and produce more consistent texture, says DuPont, so makers can turn out pizza cheese with speed.

“While our competitors may offer 1-2 consistently high-performing starter cultures, ours allow customers to utilise six rotations,” said Cheese Senior Application Specialist Brian Bartholomew, DuPont Nutrition & Health. “This brings about such consistency in production that pizza cheese and pasta filata makers can set the cultures and then move on without worry to other steps in the production process. The robust culture rotation eliminates production delays we often see in daily cheese making, allowing plants to work at greater speeds without jeopardizing texture or overall quality.”

Today, many cheese manufacturers are frequently adjusting processing times and conditions to obtain the desired performance from culture programmes offered by competitors. These adjustments impact the consistency of their cheese yield in terms of attaining moisture and dry solid targets to produce cheeses that meet their customers’ specifications. CHOOZIT® SWIFT 600 cultures have been designed to ensure iso-functional performance and consistent and secure acidification. This helps food manufacturers to improve the shelf life and functionality of their products while reducing the potential for downgrades. CHOOZIT® SWIFT 600 Cultures are the last generation within the broad portfolio of CHOOZIT® FIT & SWIFT Cultures with proven success to support the growth of the global pizza cheese Industry.

CHOOZIT® AMERI-FLEX is made for American style cheese, including cheddar, Colby and Jack. It has been proven to improve quality and consistency of cheese production under a variety of different cheese-making parameters. It is a one-bag direct to vat culture system. The convenient single pouch blend of fast acidifying mesophilic and thermophilic strains is formulated for reliability, dependability and phage robustness. Two robust formulations in this range are designed to provide flexibility for producing American cheese types in multiple processing conditions. CHOOZIT® AMERI-FLEX provides consistent and dependable acidification from vat to vat, day to day.

DuPont will present these starter cultures first in pizza at food demos at the International Cheese Technology Exposition April 17-19 in Milwaukee, Wis. (Booth #1017).