Abstract

In general consumer acceptance in Europe is swiftly moving towards less packaging materials and environmentally friendly, biodegradable materials. Furthermore there is in the traditional dairy industry, a need for better product and process control to "assist" nature to make better products faster. Cheese is a biological, natural product that must be protected in order to be safely stored and handled. In combination with the above trends this means that there could be a market for new, biodegradable alternatives for both the non-biodegradable plastic coating and for the petroleum-based wax used at present.

This concept is supported on the basis that natural materials deserve natural packaging. Such cheese coating and wax are not available and hence new formulations must be found based on biodegradable materials. The new coating and wax proposed here, are based on innovative biopolymers to be researched and developed in this project. These biopolymers should have the potential to satisfy the demands for this use. However, to obtain suitable materials will require extensive work at laboratory and pilot-scale, followed by confirmatory field tests under different climate conditions.

This project aims to do exactly that. The principal industrial objectives of this project are to research and develop a readily biodegradable food-grade biopolymer compatible with cheese, that is applicable both as a latex coating and as a wax. The new coating system will provide adequate protection for prevention of mould growth whilst having acceptable drying time and controlled water permeability. As a result it is anticipated that cheese labelling will be much easier and cheese ripening/storage time will be at least 10% shorter, so costs will be lower.

Proposals are to be made for new national and European standards for cheese wax and coating, including newly developed quality tests. The research is carried out on a Europe-wide scale, on behalf of SMEs from Italy, Spain, Germany and Sweden coordinated by a Dutch SME active in the production and supply of dairy ingredients including cheese coating. This arrangement facilitates dissemination and implementation throughout Europe, while implementation of the project results will result in estimated benefits of around 20 million euro for the cheese sector plus various associated environmental benefits and greater consumer protection. The project will strongly support the European cheesemaking industry (that makes around 1 million tonnes of coated cheese per year worth over 6 000 million euro). The results should enable the sector to anticipate future consumer demands, protecting it from the increasing competition from outside Europe. This would help ensure the survival of the artisan SME cheese makers and help preserve the highly diverse range of cheese types available in Europe.

Contacts

Coordinator

• Art van BOVEN / CSK Food Enrichment B.V. NETHERLANDS

Participant

• ATO Agrotechnological Research Institute / NETHERLANDS
• Martino VERGA / Caglificio Clerici SpA ITALY
• Roberto GIANGIACOMO / Istituto Sperimentale Lattiero Caseario Department of Applied Technologies / ITALY
• Kaj TIMREN / Nedre Norrlands Producentförening Laboratorium som Deltar i Projektet / SWEDEN
• Jaime FABREGAS / Proquiga S.A. SPAIN
• Thomas LARSSON / Terra Kemi AB Laboratorium som Deltar i Projektet / SWEDEN
• Dedenroth per PEDERSEN / Wiesby GmbH. & Co. KG GERMANY