Food New Zealand August/September 2021

A ugust /S eptember 2021

NZ’S AUTHORITY ON FOOD TECHNOLOGY, RESEARCH AND MANUFACTURING

NZIFST AWARDS 2021 FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE: J C Andrews Award Address - Margot Buick CRISPR, one tool with the potential to change our world Feed Our Future report Spray or freeze drying for lactoferrin?

THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INC.

Contents

NZ’S AUTHORITY ON FOOD TECHNOLOGY, RESEARCH AND MANUFACTURING

AU G U S T / S E P T EMB ER 2021 | VOLU ME 21, N O . 4 IS S N 1 1 7 5 – 4 6 2 1

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EDITORIAL

5 NEWSBITES News, views and information from around and about

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FOOD SAFETY

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Conference 2021 – Kai – me whakaaro nui: Food with care MPI: New Zealand Food Safety Update

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CRISPR CRISPR, one tool with the potential to change our world Laurence D. Melton and Andrew C. Allan

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JCA AWARD ADDRESS Presented by the 2021 Recipient: Margot Buick

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SLIDING ON Got the munchies?

Professor John D Brooks, FNZIFST

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SPOTLIGHT

Telarc – the one-stop shop for quality, certification and registration

Contacts Peppermint Press Ltd 5 Rupi Court, Mt Wellington Auckland 1072, New Zealand Phone 64 21 901 884 www.foodnz.co.nz

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Copyright © 2021 Peppermint Press No part of this publication may be reproduced or copied in any form by any means (graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping information retrieval systems, or otherwise) without the written permission of Peppermint Press. The views expressed in this journal are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the view of the Publisher, the Scientific Review Board, NZIFST or MIA.

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Food New Zealand

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Director and Editor Anne Scott, Peppermint Press Limited anne@foodnz.co.nz Director and Writer Dave Pooch, Peppermint Press Limited davep@me.com Advertising Anne Scott, anne@foodnz.co.nz 021 901 884 Design and Layout Johanna Paynter, Pix Design, Regular Contributors Richard Archer, John D Brooks, Laurence Eyres, Dave Pooch, Rosemary Hancock, John Lawson

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ENGINEERING Spray, or freeze drying for Lactoferrin?

Jolin Morel, Norbaizura Md Zain and Richard Archer

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FORUM Plants and animals, not plants vs animals Dr Nick Smith of the Riddet Institute’s Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, and science writer, Glenda Lewis

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MEAT Will going meat-free really save the planet?

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PACKAGING Industry Insight Reports for Save Food Packaging Design Nerida Kelton MAIP, Executive Director – Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP)

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L & N NEWS Laurence Eyres FNZIFST and Mike Eyres B.Sc.

40 NZIFST NEWS, INCLUDING: Conference Awards New Members Branch Events

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STUDENT ESSAY Is it high time the New Zealand beverage industry changed?

Bianca Kirk, Student, Massey University Palmerston North

JOIN NZIFST NOW for Executive Manager, Rosemary Hancock PO Box 5574, Terrace End, Palmerston North 4441, New Zealand Phone: 06 356 1686 or 021 217 8298, Email: rosemary@nzifst.org.nz, Website: www.nzifst.org.nz

On the cover The NZIFST Conference Dinner 2021 - an animated crowd chatting and networking.

Professional Development Networking – connecting with your peers Regular information about your industry

Next editorial and advertising deadline: September 20, 2021

Recognition through awards, scholarships, travel grants

Features for October/November 2021

www.nzifst.org.nz/join/

Mini Overview: Ingredients for food products – update Overview: Cloud based process and food safety management New technology and materials for food packaging - sustainable and recyclable

April/May 2021

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Editorial

EDITORIAL As the new President I wish to start my term by acknowledging the hard mahi put in by the previous President and Executive, thank the people who are who leaving the Executive team and welcome those who are joining it.

First and foremost, on behalf of all NZIFST members I wish to thank our former President Professor Richard Archer for calmly guiding the institute Institute the perils presented over the last two years. Richard played a large role in the decision to cancel the Congress, and undertook the negotiations with IUFoST in that process. While being obvious in hindsight the decision to cancel was, at the time, a matter of much debate. Richard’s optimism was also a major reason why we forged ahead with hosting what turned out to be a fantastic conference in Palmerston North earlier this month.

On the cancellation of the Congress: our retiring Immediate Past President, Jono Cox, was Local Organising Committee chair when the cancellation decision was made: his wind-up committee of Rosemary Hancock, Andy Williams and Mel Walker of Avenues Events called upon the goodwill and support of our sponsors and were able to negotiate a near neutral result from what could have been a serious financial loss to the institute. I wish to thank

Phil Bremer, President NZIFST

Jono sincerely for the sterling service he has provided to the Institute over the last 6 years.

Another person very worthy of thanks for their contribution to the NZIFST is Margot Buick. It was fitting that Margot was able to celebrate her second retirement from the Executive by being presented with the J C Andrews Award. It was a real pleasure to hear her talk about her career and her advice has been noted.

It is my pleasure to welcome to the Executive Esraa El Shall in her new role as Vice-President and new Executive committee members Colin Pitt and Hamish Conway. I look forward to working with them.

I wish to finish my first editorial as President by reflecting on what for me were the main points our 2021 conference. First, it was obvious how much we have missed catching up with each other and sharing information, it was great conference with great organisers, presenters, delegates and sponsors. Thank you all for your positivity. And congratulations to Conference Chair, Don Otter, and your committee for a timely programme that stimulated and inspired.

The other major point that struck me was that delegates had had enough of food and the food industry being perceived as being part of the problem. There was a passionate desire to be seen as being part of the solution.

Solution to what? Well, that depended on who was presenting. Obesity is of course a problem in which the food industry can play a significant role in worsening or lessening. Contrastingly, an equally pressing concern is food insecurity, both within New Zealand and overseas, and once again the food industry has a role to play in helping to make affordable food available for those in need by reducing product costs and food waste, through the upcycling of food and the enhancement of its safety, quality and shelf-life. Food inequity struck a particular chord with me and the absurdity of the notion that “we” can proclaim that we are “feeding the world” when people within New Zealand go hungry. Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by the frequency at which the term “sustainability” was used and how frequently the need to, the importance of, and the stated desire to produce food in a more sustainable manner was discussed.

On reflection “Food with Care” seemed to be particularly prophetic theme for our 2021 conference and the take home message for me was that we all have a role to play in making the world a better place and we can start to do this by being a little more “caring”.

Phil Bremer, FNZIFST, President

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Food New Zealand

Newsbites

Newsbites Newsbites is Food New Zealand’s pick of the news stories about NZIFST members, about companies with relationships with NZIFST plus items that catch our interest.

Folic acid in bread - setting the record straight Katherine Rich, Chief Executive, New Zealand Food & Grocery Council Folic acid fortification of bread flour mandatory by 2023

Members of FGC have been voluntarily fortifying bread for many years and now the Government has mandated that all all non-organic wheat flour used for bread making must be fortified with folic acid, except for some exported products. by mid-2023.

FGC will support its members to meet the Government’s target in 2023.

It will be easier to achieve coverage by fortifying bread flour rather than by batches of bread.

However, the New Zealand Grocery Council (FGC) are disappointed the Minister for Food Safety refers to FGC’s previous points, made during the debate on folic acid fortification some years ago as “spurious” and “misinformation” when the information presented came from some of the world’s most authoritative sources and remains a matter of record on the FGC website.

FGC has always called for all the risks and benefits to the whole population to be taken into account because it’s always a major decision to amend a national food supply.

The information that anchored our position was drawn from two of the world’s most eminent researchers in the subject: University of Oxford University researchers Emeritus Professor David Smith (the Chair and Head of Pharmacology at Oxford from 1984 -2005), and Human Nutrition professor Dr Helga Refsum.

At the time they had around 50 papers on the topic of folic acid and had raised legitimate concerns about blanket mandatory fortification without considering all the risks. The benefits and risks associated with exposing the whole population (men, elderly, children) to increased levels of folic acid are discussed in these papers and reports.

We encouraged Ministry for Primary Industries officials to have direct, expert-to-expert discussions with them but there appeared to be no interest in this.

Prof Smith read and largely supported Professor Gluckman’s report.

They had drawn on most of the same papers and conclusions. Where they differed was in their scientific opinions on the potential harms of exposing all non-targets for the fortification with the additive and the absolute numbers of potential cancers.

All other information pointed to by FGC also came from authoritative sources, including New Zealand Food Safety Authority, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, Otago University, and Parliamentary questions, where at the time the Minister for Food Safety estimated the daily intake would require 11 slices of bread.

Our caution has always been based on evidence of concerns about: •

expected and potential over-consumption by non-target population groups, (most New Zealanders), and especially children 1 to 8 years old. We were uncomfortable at the level of overconsumption by 5-8-year-olds and very concerned at the prospect of younger children being even more exposed to exceeding the upper allowable limit. This is why we encouraged

the Government to consider this before any final decision.

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the interaction of a high folate status and low vitamin B12 with respect to cognitive function

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the impact of unmetabolised folic acid circulating in the blood.

Again, our last submission to the Ministry asked that this be considered.

In our submission in 2019 we asked the Government to consider these issues, particularly relating to the overconsumption by children, elderly, men etc. The Government has announced its decision, so has clearly weighed up all potential benefits and all harms taking the whole population into account.

We’ve often made clear our support of folate and its role in nutrition.

Folate is an important part of the diet, particularly for women of childbearing age. However, commentators and government representatives often use folate and folic acid interchangeably when they are similar, but not the same. Folate, a natural B vitamin, is essential for good health. Folic acid (pteroylmonoglutamic acid) is a synthetic and the most chemically stable form of folate.

It is accepted folic acid can have both positive and detrimental effects.

This point was made in the Royal Society report: “2.2 Cancer The evidence suggests that folate may have both protective and detrimental health effects in relation to cancer, and its ultimate effect depends on both the level of intake (i.e. dose), and the absence or presence of precancerous lesions13 and established tumours (i.e. timing of exposure) [46]. Thus, adequate folate is essential to maintain normal function of healthy cells, but high folate levels may accelerate the growth of pre-existing tumours (Appendix 5.7.5.1).”

There’s another important issue regarding this decision.

The data on what New Zealanders eat is wildly out of date. The National Nutrition Survey for children was last completed in 2002, and for adults 2008. Industry, academics, and officials have been united in lobbying for a new survey. Without up-to-date information, the Government runs the risk of flying blind on critical decisions about nutrition and the food supply.

Since fortification campaigns began, folic acid has been added by the food industry to a range of other grocery products, including breakfast cereals and to bread on a voluntary basis. Between 38% - 50% of all bread, including half of packaged bread, is already fortified.

We told the Government it needed advice on how much folic acid was already in the food supply before further intervention. Prof Smith advised that with current fortification rates and blood folate levels in the New Zealand population, further benefits of mandatory fortification were likely to be marginal.

August/September 2021

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Newsbites

50 years of barcodes Fifty years on, the humble barcode turns 50 and continues to optimise supermarket stock efficiency

Two trends are now very clear.

1. Product supply chains are going to be made far more resilient 2. More and more business of every kind is going to shift online Obviously these two trends are driven by advances in digital technology.

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a drive to step up the interoperability of computers and information systems – their ability to talk to each other – to enable supply chain visibility, and

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Consumers' desire and expectation to use digital technologies, especially their smartphones, to ask questions and find information.

How it all began The ‘beep’ of a scanner on a GS1 barcode is now so embedded in the social milieu that we don’t often reflect on how it came to be ubiquitous (or indeed who made it happen). The story of how CEO of GS1, Dr Peter Stevens 50 years ago fierce competitors in the supermarket trade got together, adopted digital tools and transformed the global economy has not often been told.

Back in 1971 a powerful group of business leaders agreed on the first standards that have become embedded in the global economy. Although the first bar code patent was as early as 1952, the cheap scanners and computers which made installation worthwhile didn’t exist.

It was not until 1974, in Ohio, that the first retail product was sold using a scanner. (It was a packet of chewing gum, now housed in a Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.) What we now know as "the barcode", succeeded because it took into consideration particular and practical needs, and because members of the group were a sufficiently large part of the industry their decision flowed on to others.

As so often happens with a technology that took years to introduce, its success exceeded expectations. Instead of the projected 10,000 companies expected to use the barcode when it was introduced – mainly in the US grocery industry, 50 years later there are over two million companies in every country in the world identifying their products with a standardised barcode – 8000 in New Zealand alone.

NZ was one of the earliest adopters of scanning – and without the conflict, fear and industrial strife that bedevilled other countries, thanks to a remarkable partnership between government agencies and business interests, including our supermarkets and consumers.

Independent economist Brian Easton estimated the savings from using barcodes in New Zealand in the supermarket sector alone to be over a $1 billion annually - savings to each New Zealander are around $280 per year, or over $20 a week for a family of four and representing a productivity improvement to the whole economy of over 0.5%.

So what’s next?

COVID-19 and the next generation of digital tools are transforming the global economy again.

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Food New Zealand

The arrival of COVID and its impact on how we all live, work and engage in the modern economy is rapidly accelerating the use of a new generation of digital tools that can •

link people more closely with physical goods and services, and

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form new and vastly expanded links between systems for data capture, storage and exchange across the world.

How are GS1’s Digital Tools responding?

1. Serving a broader audience •

The COVID-19 Tracer App – 580,000+ business locations are identified by GS1 Global Location Numbers embedded in the now-familiar QR codes, and scanned all day, every day by Kiwi citizens.

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828,000 Kiwi businesses use the NZ Business Number as their legal entity identifier – again another 13-digit number allocated by GS1 NZ under the NZBN Act (2016)

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Consumers are scanning barcodes in stores to answer simple questions – what is this? What is in it? Where can I buy it cheaper?

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Athletes crossing the finishing line … unaware of the link between the RFID chip embedded in their race number and GS1’s Electronic Product Code (EPC) standards invented by the grocery industry to power hands-free automatic identification.

2. Expanding information capture and use cases It is a truism that ‘data is the new oil’. The way this is playing out in industry is an insatiable desire for information, and GS1’s tools are playing an active (and expanding) role.

And it all builds on a first generation of digital tools – the humble barcode, standards for identification and data formatting, and scannable barcodes. Leadership by private sector and government agencies led to the successful last 50 years – let’s hope that the next 50 years can drive efficiencies, safety and productivity further.

Newsbites

Founder of Heat and Control, Andy Caradis celebrates 100 years and is still pressing forward

Heat and Control Founder - 100 years old The Heat and Control family celebrated a special milestone on June 1, 2021, with the 100th birthday of their founder, Andrew (Andy) Caridis.

The team gathered for the first time in over 15 months to wish Andy a very happy birthday, and begin a new chapter.

Known as a family-oriented business owner, creative problem solver and trailblazer in the industrial food production community, Andy began his career in engineering in the early 1950s when industrial consumer goods manufacturers began investing in new ideas and technologies around the automation of food production to make better products, increase volume, improve efficiencies, create new product categories, and reach new markets. Credited with or supervising over 130 patents over the course of 70 years, Andy has been integral in advancing the food sector of the global manufacturing industry and helped companies large and small grow, adapt, and improve significantly. Advancements in the production of french fries, snack foods and prepared foods can be directly connected to Andy’s creativity and passion to create something better and to always put product quality first. Andy continues to be passionate about solving problems and finding better ways of doing things, and to this day is involved in R&D projects and supports various engineering teams within the company.

Andy was born in San Francisco during the Great Depression. He joined the military and represented his country in World War II. At the age of 30, he joined with his buddies to create Heat and Control.

That was 70 years ago and today almost 1700 staff contribute to the success of the company. "This success is based on Andy’s hard work and ability to see the future and do the right thing,” said Tony Caridis, President.

When it comes to celebrating his achievements, Andy replies with his characteristic boldness and humour, “The first 100 years was practise; the next 100 years is the real thing.”

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Newsbites Rabobank and Kiwiharvest New Rabobank-KiwiHarvest Food Waste Research has found that while New Zealanders are taking positive steps to reduce food waste, the estimated value of food thrown away by Kiwi households continues to increase and is now estimated to total $2.4 billion per year.

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New Zealanders are now wasting less of their food than in 2019 with the estimated percentage of food waste falling to 8.6% from 10.2 per cent previously.

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But the estimated value of food waste across all New Zealand households has grown to $2.4 billion per year as a result of higher food prices, increased spend on household food and a greater number of households.

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Fruit and vegetables are the most frequently-wasted food items, while ‘wasted money’ is New Zealanders’ most pressing food-waste concern

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The proportion of food wasted

by Kiwis differs markedly across age groups, with younger New Zealanders wasting a significantlyhigher proportion of their household food spend than older Kiwis.

James Rutter (EnviroWaste) left, with Gavin Findlay (NZFN). The two organisations are in partnership to actively divert edible food to NZFN for distribution to those in need

EnviroWaste partners with NZ Food Network A New partnership will boost the volume of food production surplus going to feed hungry Kiwis.

EnviroWaste has joined NZ Food Network (NZFN) to put more food on the table for the thousands of Kiwi households experiencing food insecurity.

The new partnership will see EnviroWaste working with its large food production clients to actively divert edible food to NZFN before processing any remaining food in a sustainable way.

NZFN CEO Gavin Findlay said “EnviroWaste’s strong history of food recovery and waste minimisation resonates with the NZFN, an organisation that effectively exists to get food to where it’s needed most. Partnering with EnviroWaste and its network of industry clients will help us channel more food to more vulnerable communities across the country.”

NZFN was launched in July 2020 to make it easier and more efficient for businesses to donate bulk surplus food to charities and communities in need. The NZ Food Network facilitates the safe transportation, storage and distribution of bulk surplus food from businesses. This bulk food is sorted into manageable, mixed pallets at NZFN distribution centres to fulfil a variety of needs.

“We’re delighted to do our bit to support the nearly one-in-five Kiwis experiencing food insecurity,” James Rutter, EnviroWaste General Manager of Infrastructure, said.

These pallets are then able to be ordered as required in more manageable volumes, and at no cost, by NZFN’s network of now 50 Food Hub Partners across New Zealand. In turn, these Food Hubs work with food charities and agencies at the front line supporting our vulnerable communities.

Early indications showed a genuine interest among EnviroWaste clients, with several already having diverted contributions to NZFN.

The partnership has been formed to make it even easier for NZ food manufacturers and producers to do the right thing with food that can’t be sold. It offers a single point of contact through which any surplus food – regardless of state – can be diverted without further complication. Food that is edible will be distributed by NZFN to its Food Hubs while remaining inedible items will be securely repurposed, processed, or recycled by EnviroWaste, typically at or below the cost of sending it to landfill.

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The collaboration with NZFN, follows ongoing work by EnviroWaste to help food manufacturers pursue a bolder vision for waste recovery and reuse to benefit both the community and environment.

Rutter said “NZFN does great work and I’m sure our many food manufacturing clients will jump at the opportunity to redistribute surplus food to the people who need it.”

NZFN has distribution centres in Auckland and Christchurch and they will be establishing a presence in Hawke's Bay later this year.

Since its formation in July 2020, NZFN has rescued and redistributed the equivalent of over 3 million kilograms of food, provided 7.8 million meals, and saved 7.3 million kilograms of CO₂ emissions.

For more information about the partnership, please visit: https://www. nzfoodnetwork.org.nz/s/envirowaste-partnership

Newsbites

Competenz appoints new Director Phase-out of problem plastics

Industry training organisation Competenz has appointed Amanda Wheeler to the newly created role of Director, to lead the organisation through its transition into Te Pūkenga, The New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, and beyond.

Ms Wheeler is the current General Manager of Industry Training within Competenz and will will tackle her new role on 02 August 2021.

The New Zealand Food & Grocery Council welcomes the Government’s moves to phase out problem plastics and some single-use plastics within four years.

Competenz has appointed Amanda Wheeler to the newly created role of Director

Amanda has held chief executive and senior roles for the past 18 years in medium-sized corporate and non-government organisations.

She understands the demands of New Zealand's industries and is passionate about helping Kiwis build skills, careers and businesses through qualifications that make it easy to learn on the job. She joined Competenz in 2017 in a stakeholder management role and has led the core field-facing team since 2018. During this time, Amanda has worked hard to cement the connection between the training advisory, forestry, and customer teams and businesses across the 38 industries they work with.

She is the first person to be appointed to the role of Director, Competenz Business Division, Work-Based Learning Subsidiary, Te Pūkenga. The position has come about as part of the Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE) which sees all industry training organisation and polytechnics joining together by December 2022. The Director takes the place of the Competenz Chief Executive position, currently held by Fiona Kingsford, which has been disestablished.

“Member companies have been working hard individually to reduce plastics from packaging and we are now starting to see the results of other materials being trialled for meat trays, for example.

“For the past two years, FGC has maintained a highpowered member-driven Sustainability Committee, led by Nestlé CEO Christian Abboud, working on all aspects of sustainability.

“Our plastics group has been working to influence the FMCG community around best practices for plastic packaging and to stimulate and deliver positive change to achieve circular economy principles. Its goal is that FGC members conduct all required work to maximise positive changes being made away from the use of the most damaging plastic types."

Christian Abboud says it’s encouraging to see the Government’s strong drive to move away from hard-torecycle plastics.

“However, with the ongoing global freight challenges and issues at the Ports of Auckland we might see some of these plans get impacted and potentially delayed. The first phase-out is now less than 18 months away, which is a tight time frame."

Alex Allan leaves The Foodbowl Foodbowl CEO, Alex Allan, has resigned after 7 years at The FoodBowl, with 5.5 years as the CEO. Alex says "I have loved working at The FoodBowl and relished the opportunities and challenges that have come with it. I'm really going to miss everyone at The FoodBowl, including our clients, the board, and most of all our awesome team who have without a doubt been the best team a person could hope to work with."

Chief Executive Katherine Rich says the Food & Grocery Council (FGC) has been working with its members since 2019 to support a move away from hard-to-recycle plastics and to help implement the Government’s ‘Rethinking Plastics’ recommendations as they relate to the sector.

Alex Allan has resigned from The Foodbowl

Alex is moving on to an Innovation role at Fonterra in August, and the team at TFB and the wider Food Innovation Network all wish her well in this new position.

You can stay in touch with Alex on LinkedIn.

“FGC is also pleased to see that degradable plastic packaging is included and we fully support the inclusion of single-use compostable plastic bags in this ban.

Our guidance to members is that compostable plastic packaging which is sold for use at home should not be introduced into the market until there is infrastructure in place to deal with this waste."

“We also welcome the $50 million Plastics Innovation Fund announced by Minister Parker. We would like to see some of this funding available now to get innovative projects under way immediately, including investment in technology that will increase the availability of packaging made from New Zealand’s plastic waste."

Al Baxter, Business Development Manager, has been appointed acting Chief Executive in the interim.

Lawson Williams are recruiting for a new Chief Executive.

August/September 2021

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Food Safety

Conference 2021: Kai – me whakaaro nui: Food with care Glen Neal, General Manager Risk Management and Intelligence, Food Standards Australia New Zealand

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder but gee whiz it was good to be back in a room with 400 people in Palmerston North for the recent NZIFST gig.

improved yields (arguably a consumer benefit also) and reduced cost of inputs. Drought resistant cultivars are also an emerging theme which is good news given the direction climate is heading.

A block-buster start from Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Professor Juliet Gerard issued several challenges that lie ahead of us all, in the "dystopian future of scientific consensus". She spoke of an increasingly politicised food system where weaponised activists (Including some academics?, I wondered) clamour for attention.

Someone has to "dream it first" and she specifically cited the need for a more mature, nuanced public discourse around GM, although I think she was primarily alluding to the HSNO Act and the "tired" 20 year-old moratorium on production. The technology has moved on since we were collectively frightened into thinking there would be toad genes in our spuds and that ‘frankenfoods’ pose an existential threat.

Over the past 20 years new techniques have emerged as well. Some of them do not result in changes to the nucleic profiles of their food products – so this litmus test of distinction – particularly relevant when it comes to enforcement – presents a challenge to regulators the world over.

We seem to embrace GM, or at least look away, when it delivers public goods in the form of life saving medicines and vaccines – but I guess we shouldn’t look for too much logic in what quickly becomes an emotive topic.

FSANZ has for 20 years reviewed the merits of a large number of foods produced using gene technology. From modified production organisms for processing aids through to pesticide and drought resistant cultivars of garden variety crops and vegetables, we have approved many for sale in Australia and New Zealand via the Food Standards Code.

Recent developments include vitamin enhanced rice, reducedacrylamide potatoes and the impossible burger. The subtle difference is that these three examples deliver consumer benefits whereas when GM got underway the benefits largely accrued to producers via

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FSANZ won’t necessarily be "dreaming it first" but by the time you are reading this we should be underway with the more mature, nuanced, risk-based approach to regulating these technologies in the future. We have conducted a review of new breeding techniques and achieved the almost unthinkable – consensus that the rules need to be updated in light of these new technologies. I sense the outbreak of harmony will cease once we get into the detail of how the rules might operate – but as you’ve (hopefully) read before in this column our Act does not require us to base our decision making on everyone’s agreement.

It should be an interesting conversation!

There were so many other interesting presentations but a key feature of this conference was the abundance of young and exceptionally bright talent on display via the hundred or so posters and the entertaining and intriguing 3 Minute Pitch student presentations. I volunteered to be a judge for both this year – a first for me and I was grateful for the opportunity to not only work with the great Don Otter, but to be engaged in the breadth and depth of research from a talented, and very diverse cohort of future food science leaders. We are in good hands.

Especially with Professor Phil Bremer at the helm of the Institute.

Congratulations Dr Phil.

Food Safety

New Zealand Food Safety Update In this edition, we’re focusing on the rules for importing food, drinks and ingredients for sale, and our regulatory re-design project under the Wine and Animal Products Acts.

Consultations: Wine and Animal Products Regulatory re-design New Zealand Food Safety is seeking feedback on the regulatory redesign of regulations and notices under the Animal Products Act 1999 and Wine Act 2003.

importer with New Zealand Food Safety. Alternatively, you can use an agent who is a registered food importer. Food consignments imported into New Zealand by un-registered importers will be held until a food importer registration number is issued. Go to foodsafety.govt.nz/ register-as-a-food-importer for easy-to-follow steps on how to register, renew or update your registration.

The regulatory framework is being re-designed to make it easier for businesses operating under these Acts to find and comply with their legislative requirements – by removing repetition, enhancing accessibility, and making the language easier to understand.

Also, if your business holds multiple Trade Single Window (TSW) registrations, ensure your food imports are lodged using the TSW registration that is linked to your food importer registration.

The public consultation on the re-designed regulations closes on 8 August. The six-week consultation on re-designed notices (including new proposals) is set to close on 12 September.

Your Intended Use declarations are crucial and getting this right will facilitate efficient border clearance. This also includes products with Intended Use declarations of “FP – Further Processing” and “RE – Reexport”. For advice on Intended Use coding, visit foodsafety.govt.nz/ register-as-a-food-importer

For details, visit the mpi.govt.nz/redesign-of-animal-products-andwine-regulations-and-notices web page.

Intended Use Declarations

My Food Rules

Importing food, drinks and ingredients for sale To avoid unnecessary delays to their next consignments, importers of food for sale need to have a valid food importer registration and complete their Intended Use declarations for all consignments.

Food Importer Registration If you import food, drinks, or ingredients for sale (including goods for further processing or re-export), you must be registered as a food

You may need to also register as a food business under either the Food Act 2014, Animal Products Act 1999 or Wine Act 2003. To find your food rules, go to foodsafety.govt.nz/myfoodrules and complete the online questionnaire.

Questions?

If you have any questions about registration as a food importer, or if you are unsure if the product you import is classed as food for sale, please visit foodsafety.govt.nz/importingfood, email info@mpi.govt.nz or call 0800 00 83 33.

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Research

CRISPR, one tool with the potential to change our world Authors: Laurence D. Melton¹ and Andrew C. Allan²,³ 1

School of Chemical Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland

2

Plant & Food Research, Mt Albert, Auckland

3

School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland

Fig 1. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, 2020 Nobel Prize winners in chemistry

Introduction Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna (Fig.1) were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2020. This is the first time that two women have shared a Nobel Prize, by itself an important milestone.

Their research on CRISPR-based gene editing heralds a new era in the biological sciences including food science. CRISPR has the potential to cure life-threatening hereditary diseases such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy, while also targeting some breast, ovarian, prostate and stomach cancers. Aside from its use in medicine, CRISPR can be applied to plants, animals, bacteria and fungi. If used in plant breeding, CRISPR-directed changes to the genome can generate new higher yielding wheat, rice and corn, to help feed the world’s burgeoning population. Gene editing can be used to produce disease resistant plants and animals, and facilitate production of plant proteins as meat 12

Food New Zealand

substitutes. Nutrition is improved by targeted breeding of pigs with less fat and cooking oils with less saturated fat, or tomatoes with higher levels of Vitamin A. Heat and drought tolerant crops and animals will assist in dealing with global warming.

What is CRISPR? CRISPR (pronounced “crisper”) stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”. At the core of CRISPR are pieces of RNA, which are commonly loaded into an enzyme (a DNAcutter) called Cas9. The role of the CRISPR system in nature is to protect bacteria from viruses. Bacteria that survive a viral infection keep part of the viral DNA, which is stored in the bacterial genome between CRISPR sequence repeats. If the same virus invades again, the bacteria have

Research

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of how CRISPR-Cas9 functions.

The Cas9 endonuclease (pale blue silhouette) interacts with two small RNAs, CRISPR RNA (crRNA) (blue) which matches the DNA target sequence (orange). The part of the crRNA that is complementary to the target sequence is called the spacer. The second tracrRNA (green) base pairs with crRNA and acts as a to link the crRNA to Cas9. The other essential part of the system is PAM (protospacer adjacent motif) which is 2 – 6 nucleotides of DNA (in this example N = any nucleotide and G = guanine).

Cas9 cuts the DNA strands precisely 3 nucleotides upstream from PAM.

Fig. 3.(A) Model of CRISPR-Cas9 acting on DNA. Cas9 is coloured white, DNA strands are two shades of blue and CRISPR is orange. Source: Laura Morton Photography

a complementary RNA sequence that guides a Cas9 nuclease to cut the viral DNA, stopping the infection. Scientists can make their own versions of CRISPR RNAs, which guide the Cas enzymes to cut specific DNA in target genes. In other words CRISPR-Cas acts as genetic scissors that can precisely edit or alter specific genes.

In the CRISPR-Cas9 system (Fig.2) the short CRISPR RNA (crRNA) sequence matches the DNA target sequence. The part of the crRNA that is complementary to the target sequence is called the spacer.

The tracrRNA base pairs with crRNA and acts as a scaffold to link the crRNA to Cas9 endonuclease (shown as a blue silhouette). The other essential part of the system is PAM (protospacer adjacent motif) which is a short (2-6 nucleotides) DNA region 3 nucleotides upstream from where Cas cuts the DNA strand. The Cas9 nuclease, isolated from Streptococcus pyogenes, recognises a PAM sequence of NGG (where N is any nucleotide base and G is Guanine). If the target region does not have NGG then Cas9 cannot act. However, there are many different Cas endonucleases (e.g. Cas12, Cas13) each isolated from different bacteria, and each one recognises a different PAM. For example, Cas9 from Staphylococcus aureus (SaCas9) recognises the PAM, NNGRRT (where R is a purine, T is thymine). Fig.3 shows the space-filling model of the DNA double-helix (blue) being acted on by CRISPR (orange) and Cas nuclease (white).

Fig3(B) Model opened to show the interaction of the Cas9 enzyme with DNA and CRISPR. Cas9 is coloured white, DNA strands are two shades of blue and CRISPR is orange August/September 2021

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CRISPR, when used as a gene editing technique, can be targeted to more than one gene at the same time (by using more than one RNA guide sequence). It does not involve adding DNA from a different species into the host genome (eg. plant or animal), which could result in unintended or undesirable consequences. It can be applied to plants, animals, yeasts and bacteria. There are several other enzyme-based gene editing techniques, yet CRISPR remains faster and cheaper to use, and is now in use in thousands of laboratories world-wide.

Human Diseases CRISPR has the potential to cure many hereditary diseases that involve a single gene defect. These include sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, phenylketonuria, Tay-Sachs disease, multiple myeloma, hereditary diffuse gastric cancer, Huntington chorea, familial hypercholesterolemia, haemochromatosis and haemophilia.

These are seriously life-threatening diseases, some of which, such as Huntington chorea, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and Tay-Sachs, have no effective treatment. In other cases the cures currently available can be drastic: for cystic fibrosis by lung transplant, for diffuse gastric cancer removal of the entire stomach, haemophilia by liver transplant and haemochromatosis by old-fashioned bloodletting. Sickle cell anaemia affects millions of people in Africa and as many as 100,000 in the USA. The life expectancy in Africa is 5 to 8 years and in the USA 40 years.

For CRISPR-therapy, blood taken from the patient could provide pluripotent stem cells to be gene edited using CRISPR to knock out the defective gene, and the blood returned to the patient¹. Matthew Porteous reported² that while a 20% alteration was sufficient to obtain a cure in mice, they were able to reach 70%. What is not known at this time is how long the cure lasts, but it has lasted two years in mice².

Clinical trials with CRISPR-treated patients led to an announcement in January 2021 that one patient with sickle cell disease and one patient with beta-thalassemia, an abnormal form of haemoglobin causing the destruction of red blood cells resulting in anaemia, had been cured³. At least five more clinical trials are being conducted in China.

Replacing blood is relatively easy. Other organs such as liver, pancreas, kidneys and brain present a much greater challenge. One approach is to use in vivo gene editing (e.g. by injection of CRISPR/Cas9 plasmids into the liver4). Less invasively, CRISPR-treated stem cells can be packaged in fatty nanoparticles that pass through the target-cell membranes, and are carried by the blood system to the liver5. This procedure is under industrial devlopment6. Hereditary blindness has been treated by injecting, into the eye, a virus that produces the CRISPR system, bypassing the need to use the blood stream. Initial work with mice has led to a human trial6. A recent review7 covers additional delivery systems for different organs.

Transplant organs from pigs Due to the shortage of human organs for transplants, pigs are potential alternatives. The problem of introducing foreign antigens can be solved by using CRISPR to knock out key genes8. In New Zealand, AgResearch has a science team that aims to produce transplant organs using pigs.

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Feeding this world and climate change Some of the diseases that may be cured by CRISPR gene editing techniques involve a relatively small number of people. For example, only one baby in 15,000 is expected to have phenylketonuria, and there are about 5 cases of Huntington’s chorea per 100,000. In contrast, food supply is essential for everyone. The world population is expected to reach 7.8 billion in 2021 and increase by 24% to 9.7 billion in 2050.

There are already food shortages in parts of the world. The Guardian Weekly (1st March 2021) reported that famine in Yemen is likely to be the worst the world has seen in decades. UNICEF estimates that with the added pressure of Covid-19, 54 million children worldwide are currently suffering from life-threatening malnutrition and this is likely to be exacerbated by global warming.

Plant breeding has been integral to the world’s success in coping with increased population. New tools, such as CRISPR, have the potential to help deal with the dual challenge of more people and global warming.

CRISPR can be applied to all aspects of food production9. See Table 1, below.

Technique

Application

Knockin

Produces leaner pigs

Knockout

Increases rice yields

Endogenous use of Cas9

Increases phage protection in yoghurt

Knockin

Increases drought resistance in corn

Knockout

Reduces browning in mushrooms

nCas9

Increases tuberculosis resistance in cattle

Table 1. Applications of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to agriculture and food production.9

It has been used to increase yield and other desired traits in crops such as wheat10,11, corn¹² and rice¹³. With a more consumer-focus CRISPR edits can produce pork with less fat14, while gluten-reduced wheat has been achieved resulting in bread for people with coeliac disease15.

Tomatoes bought in supermarkets can be tasteless because they are harvested too early, while home grown tomatoes taste great. Using CRISPR the softening enzyme pectate lyase was turned off16 so the tomatoes can be left on the vines longer to potentially develop more flavour. Possibly the first gene-edited food was high oleic acid soybean oil with longer frying life, which came on the market in the USA in March 2019. However, it was gene edited by a method called TALEN, considered slower and more expensive compared to CRISPR. Potatoes stored at low temperature turn an unattractive brown when fried at high temperatures to prepare chips (French fries). TALEN was used to prevent the breakdown of starch to glucose, which results in the browning reaction, and to reduce acrylamide formation17. These potatoes have been on sale in the USA since 2019.

Research Aiding food and agriculture CRISPR has the potential to aid food and agriculture in even more ways (Table 2.) including breeding plants that are disease resistant, or herbicide resistant18,19. Because CRISPR systems are a natural defence against viruses they are ideal for stopping viral infections20.

Moreover, CRISPR can be used to facilitate the production of bioactive compounds18 such as lysine, beta-carotene, lycopene as well as D-pantothenic acid²¹.

Most importantly CRISPR can be used to adapt plants and animals to increasing heat and drought caused by global warming. The USDA ARS is developing drought- and salt- tolerant soybeans and DuPont is working on corn to produce very high amylopectin starch²². Moreover, alleles (gene variants) that are observed in a domestic plant (such as tomato), can be re-created using CRISPR, to improve the yield of a drought resistant wild variety.²³ In New Zealand, AgResearch has committed to a program of producing heat tolerant cows with increased milk production and lower greenhouse gas emissions (N.Z. Herald, 1st Oct. 2019). Plant & Food Research is using CRISPR to edit flowering24,25 and ripening related genes26 with the aim of the research being to reduce the time needed to breed perennial plants, as well as increasing the storage life of fruit.

Table 2. Further applications of CRISPRCas gene-editing in food and agriculture.18 q

Manipulating bioactive compounds production n

• • • • • • q

Bioactive alkaloids Plant hormones Flavanoids Lycopene Lysine Glutamate

Crop production enhancement n

Quality improvement

• Nutritional value • Concentration • Productivity q

Virus resistance n

Induced immunity against

• • •

Food Safety Applications with bacteria and viruses CRISPR-Cas13a can be used to detect bacteria causing food poisoning (e.g. Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella). Moreover, CRISPR technology can identity different strains of these bacteria as well as those of lactobacilli and streptococci. The strains may have almost identical genomes, except for the small differences detected

by CRISPR. Fingerprinting means superior strains can be chosen for food fermentations and production of probiotics. CRISPR naturally acts on and destroys bacteriophages, consequently improving yoghurt manufacture, for example. Killing targeted microbes is achievable using CRISPR. Hau Liu et al.27 combined CRISPR-Cas12a with PCR amplification to detect food poisoning bacteria, meat adulteration and genetically modified crops. The detection procedure took just 45 minutes. Similarly, CRISPR-Cas13a with PCR amplification has been used to detect Staphylococcus aureus in milk, juice and beer.28

Biosynthesis

q

Potyvirus Turnip mosaic virus...

Disease resistance n

Transgenic plants against

• • • q

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus

Powdery mildew Verticillium wilt Rice blast...

Physical and chemical resistance n

Crops resistance against

• • •

Drought Herbicide Mechanical post-harvest processes

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In a further development, CRISPR-Cas13a editing with a three-stage amplification but without bacterial isolation, detected Salmonella enterica Enteritidis close to 1 CFU in milk.29

4. Yin, H.; Xue, W.; Chen, S.;……Anderson, D.G. Nat. Biotechnol. 2014, 32 (6), 551 – 553

New Zealand regulations compared to other countries

6. Ledford, H. Nature, 2020, 577. 156

In New Zealand, CRISPR gene editing to improve foods is treated under the same regulations as GMOs. EU regulations currently have a similar level of restriction. In contrast other countries are far less regulated. Australia has indicated that an organism with changes to its DNA equivalent to spontaneous mutations that arise naturally, need not be regulated. Sweden has announced that CRISPR isn’t a GMO technology. Canada and the USA work on a case-by-case basis. The USA has already approved more than ten gene edited crops as having non-regulated status.

Gene editing to cure human diseases in New Zealand is regulated by the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HSNO Act) and the Medicines Act, meaning CRISPR is treated like a GMO. Approval of gene drives in New Zealand is complicated: they are regulated under the HSNO Act and the Agricultural Compound and Veterinary Medicines Act and four other Acts have to be considered.

Concluding Remarks There are many exciting and ground-breaking implications of the use of CRISPR both in human health, and in the supply of food. Some aspects to consider that will aid feeding of an increasing population, under the increasing pressure of climate change, include:

5. Yin, H.; Song, C.Q.; Dorkin, J.R.;……Anderson, D.G. Nat. Biotechnol.

2016, 34 (3),328 – 333.

7. Haasteren, J.; Li, J.; Scheideler, O.J.; Murthy, N.; Schaffer, D.V. Nat. Biotechnol. 2020, 38, 845 – 855.

8.Tanihara, F.; Hirata, M.; Nguyen, N.T.;……Otoi, T. BMC Biotechnol.

2020, 20, 40 – 51.

9. Brandt, K.; Barrangou, R. Annu. Rev. Food Sci. Technol. 2019, 10, 133 – 150.

10. Okada, A.; Arndell, T.; Borisjuk, N; ……Whitford, R. Plant Biotechnol. J. 2019, 17, 1905–1913.

11. Kumar, R.; Kaur, A.; Pandey, A.; Mamrutha, H.M.; Singh, G.P. Mol. Biol. Rep. 2019, 46, 3557 – 3569.

12. Tian, J.; Wang, C.; Xia, J.;……Tian, F. Science 2019, 365, 658 – 664.

13. Usman, B.; Nawaz, G.; Zao, N.;……Li, R. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2021, 22, 249 – 267.

14. Zheng, Q.; Lin, J.; Huang, J.;……Zhao, J. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2017, 114(45), E9474 – E9482.

15. Jouanin, A.; Gilissen, L.J.; Schaart, J.G……Smulders, M.J. Front.

Nutr. 2020, 7, 51.

16. Wang, D.; Samsulrizal, N.H.; Yan, C.;…...Seymour, G.B. Plant Physiol. 2019, 179, 544 – 557.

17. Waltz, E. Nat. Biotechnol. 2019, 37, 573 – 575 18. Es, I.; Gavahian, M.; Marti-Quijal, F.J.; ……Barba, F.J. Biotechnol.

Adv. 2019, 37, 410 – 421.

•

Plants and animals resistant to diseases, leading to less food waste.

•

Longer life of fresh vegetables and fruit (and cheaper processing), leading to less food waste

20. Kalinina, N.O.; Khromov, A.; Love, A.J.; Taliansky, M.E. Phytopathology, 2020, 110, 18 – 28.

•

Reduction of pesticides

•

Tastier plant-based foods (flavour, colour, texture)

21.Zhang, B.; Zhang, X.-M.; Wang, W.; Liu, Z.-Q.; Zheng, Y.-G. Food Chem. 2019, 294, 267 – 275.

•

Plant and animal adaption to climate change

22.Waltz, E. Nat. Biotechnol. 2018, 36, 6 – 7.

•

Greater CO2 fixation by plants

•

Improvements in monitoring food safety

23. Khan, M.Z.; Zaidi, S.S.; Amin, I.; Mansoor, S. Trends Plant Sci. 2019, 24 (4), 293 – 296.

The main concerns of the wider use of CRISPR-based editing should include careful testing for unintended effects and scrutiny of who benefits and who is asked to take any risks associated with any innovation. However, restrictive legislation aimed at stopping innovation risks further harm to our planet and its inhabitants.

References 1. Park, S. H.; Lee, C.M.; Dever, D. P.; ……Porteous, M.; Sheehan, V.A. Bao. G. Blood 2018, 132, 2192.

2. Porteous, M. Genome Editing of Human Stem Cells. School of Biological Sciences Seminar, University of Auckland, 30 August 2019.

3. Frangoul, H.; Altshuler, D.; Cappellini, M.D.;……Corbacioglu, S. New Eng. J. Med. 2021, 384 (3), 252 – 260.

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Food New Zealand

19. Schenke, D.; Cai, D. iScience 2020, 23, 101478.

24. Akagi, T.; Pilkington, S.M.; Varkonyl-Gasic, E.; ……Tao, R. Nature Plants 2019, 5, 801 – 809.

25. Varkonyl-Gasic, E.; Wang, T.; Voogd, C.;……Allan, A.C. Plant Biotech. J. 2019, 17, 869 – 880.

26. Wang, R.; Nardozza, S.; Nieuwenhuizen,N.J.;……Schaffer, R.J. N.Z.J. Crop. Hort. Sci. 2021, 49, 277 – 293.

27. Liu, H.; Wang, J.; Zeng, H.; ……Tang X. Food Chem. 2021, 334, 127608.

28. Zhou, J,; Yin, L.; Dong, Y.;……Ma, L. Anal. Chim. Acta 2020, 1127, 225 – 233.

29. Shen, J.; Zhou, X.; Shan, Y.; ……Xing, D. Nature Commun. 2021, 11, 267.

JCA Address

The J C Andrews Award Address Presented at the NZIFST Conference by the 2021 Recipient: Margot Buick

The J C Andrews award celebrates the achievements of Dr John Clark Andrews, who in 1945 proposed the establishment of a chair in Food Technology but it took until 1961, while Dr Andrews was Chancellor of Massey University for the Department of Food Technology to be established at Massey.

When I look down the list of previous recipients, I am honoured to join a list of people who I have admired through my career in the food industry.

My career has been divided into 2 areas, technical and governance. So, starting from the beginning...

Starting from the beginning My technical side started with my first job at Alliance Freezing Company as a laboratory technician. I was the only female inside the gate, that is on plant, with 800 meat workers.

The Lorneville plant was a holistic processing unit that included meat processing, rendering, casings, small goods, bag room, fellmongery and cooperage.

The company sourced its potable water supply from the Oreti River and treated it through a Candy filter plant. The plant's water use was greater than the whole of Invercargill city at the time. All waste water was treated at the company’s extensive effluent plant with treated water going into the Makarewa River.

In those days the laboratory, which performed only chemical and effluent analyses, was a den of mischief. When I joined the lab, it was staffed by 2 university drop outs, an older gentleman with dairy laboratory experience, the Chief Chemist – and me. Pontoon was the name of the game along with loads of pranks which in hindsight were downright dangerous. The balance room was the place to hide as it had curtains and approaching management could be sighted easily.

All of this was to change when our new Chief Chemist in the form of Nick Jarman arrived. Nick was to bring innovation and vitality to a young and adventurous company. He was to go on to be President of NZIFST in 1975 and received the J C Andrews Award in 1980. He also represented NZ at Codex Alimentarius for many years. Under Nick’s tutelage I developed and implemented microbiology methodology for Alliance. Micro being performed on plant was new to the industry and it was stimulating to be at the beginnings of this.

Early days of micro Micro in those long-ago times was decidedly different from today. All pipetting was done by mouth with sterilised glass pipettes with only a small wad of cotton wool in the top. Meat and most of its by-products are difficult to homogenise. This was done in sterilised Waring blender cups. One had to have a good set of lungs to suck up the slurry for using in total plate counts. All plates were counted manually using a colony counter which had back-lighting and a magnifying glass.

Margot Buick, 2021 J C Andrews Award To test for coagulase positive staphylococcus, blood was collected during sticking, as the animal was killed (using a single knife cut to the throat) into sterilised centrifuge tubes. These were then centrifuged and the plasma used for coagulase testing.

Gram staining was the first step in identification of bacteria after being sub-cultured from selective media plates. Biochemical tests were performed using small volumes of defined substates, mainly sugars, in bijou bottles containing coloured glass beads to identify the substrate, and inverted test tubes to capture any gas from fermentation. No API’s or DNA sequencing – that was to come much later.

Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology was the bible used to identify bacteria based on microscopy, ability to grow on specific media, appearance of colonies, and biochemical tests of metabolism.

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JCA Address

As a laboratory technician at Alliance Lorneville in the late 1960s, Margot was the only female on site

By this time the laboratory had quadrupled, both in footprint as well as having 16 staff, including a biochemist, 2 food technologists, chef, chemical engineers and lab technicians. There were now separate micro and chemistry labs and the latest equipment including an electronic calculator which had 6 functions and cost the equivalent of 6 months’ salary!

NZIFST - first contact

All pipetting was done by mouth with sterilised glass pipettes with only a small wad of cotton wool in the top. Photo Massey Archives I used these tedious methodologies in extensive work on salmonella in meatmeal that resulted in the presentation of a paper to the Meat Industry conference. The contamination was thought to have come from birds and rodents. This work led to a number of research projects at MIRINZ, over the years, on animal feed and feed mills.

Meat industry projects There were many projects initiated at this time in which I was involved and put Alliance as a leader in the meat industry. These included; •

Bio gas being captured from effluent plant and used in wool dryers

•

Freeze drying substrates for the food industry

•

Large contract for freeze dried meals for US Army in the Pacific

•

Boil-in-the bag meals for the Japanese market

•

Mince dried through the wool dryers

•

Pet food from rendered waste

•

Food grade liver powder

•

Food grade beef powder

•

Processed food division

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Food New Zealand

Nick Jarman also encouraged me to attend the NZIFST Conference and assured me that Mary Earle would look out for me. In those days all NZIFST Conferences were held at Massey with accommodation in the student "Pink Hostel" on site. The conference itself was held in the lecture theatres. Refreshments were served in what is now the old Refectory building. I arrived to find only 2 other female attendees, Mary Earle, who was to become a mentor for me over the years, and Mary Humphries (who later married Harry Lewin). My, how that has changed.

The big OE By this time the big OE was calling so I headed off to the UK and landed a job at Thomas Walls and Sons, pork producers, in London, again as a lab technician. Initially I was in the chemistry lab doing routine analysis so was grateful for the training I had at the beginning of my career.

The chemistry lab was situated on the floor above the yards. Pigs, particularly Large White breeds, as you may know, can smell impending death. This meant that the day was accompanied by squealing until the end of sticking at 3.00 pm. This was quite disturbing and I never got used to the noise. Interesting fact, pigs’ right ears used to be collected on a daily basis by perfume, makeup and skincare companies for allergy testing. Their skin is the closest to humans and why only right ears I never did find out.

I was then transferred to the micro lab, initially doing routine micro testing. As I was able to drive, I became involved in an extensive microbiological project on pig nutrients, visiting and sampling on

JCA Address

farm. (Car ownership and driving licences were not common in the laboratory in those days.)

This was the first time I had come across class divisions. There were 5 levels of ‘smoko’ rooms, workers through to senior management, from wooden tables to silver service. At first, I lunched with the other lab techs in the second-level-from-the-bottom cafeteria but as I moved up the management levels, I was expected to leave the riff raff behind and dine at the appropriate level. Not this egalitarian Kiwi, I stayed with the lab technicians.

Just prior to leaving New Zealand the importers of our meat products, the UK among them, brought in tough regulations for our meat processing industry which started with completely fencing all processing facilities and regular hygiene inspections. Imagine my horror on visiting the manufacturing floor at Walls to see cockroaches circling the bowl choppers, I guess it added crunch. The levels of hygiene in the UK meat processing plants were way lower than the regulations they put on New Zealand at that time.

One of the so-called perks of the job was to receive a small parcel of the company’s product each Friday. This could be sausages, a wee pork pie or a thick slice of raised pork and egg pie. I have many recipes from that time for pork sausage meat but not one of them can disguise its origins.

It is only recently that we have come back to eating the occasional sausage.

It became time to return home to the beautiful blue skies and freedom of thought and deeds.

Microbiologist: Ocean Beach Freezing Company I joined Ocean Beach Freezing Company as the Microbiologist and set up the micro lab and also developed some further methodology. This was a small lab in a plant built in 1892 and situated on an isthmus near Bluff. A lot of the plant was old and terraced down the hill. The substrate was granite and the Chief Engineer loved to use dynamite when any alterations or new buildings were to be constructed. Blasts could happen at any time and without any warning. The whole lab would shake and glassware tumble. We soon learned to store things as you would in a ship.

During my time there, the Waste Water Discharge Rights Hearing came up. Ocean Beach did primary screening of waste with solids going to compost and the remaining liquid going into Foveaux Strait. There were also historical waste pipes entering Bluff Harbour on the harbour side. The mix of westerly gales surging into the funnel-like Strait and the tidal and sea currents flowing through it make it a treacherous and turbulent piece of water with, fortunately, a fantastic dilution rate.

The application to continue the Rights to Discharge into the strait were to be held in the Invercargill Court. This led to an extensive marine water study on both the Harbour and Strait sides. I went to the Cawthron Institute to learn how to evaluate microbes in sea water. Thus began a massive amount of sampling for 3 weeks to gain data. I sampled the harbour on full and half tide daily and the Strait weekly. Going through the heads at Bluff is an exciting experience and I can proudly say I didn’t disgrace myself although I came close to it on several occasions.

The results of this study were presented at the hearing and waste water discharge rights were granted.

One of the so-called perks at Ocean Beach was a small parcel of the company’s product each Friday. This consisted of smallgoods only, liver, sweetbreads, and kidneys. These could be traded for oysters in the

season, a much superior offering. There was a knock at the lab door one morning and a lovely slaughterman handed me a large carton that made scratching noises. “Thought you would like this, “he said. When I opened the carton, it was full of live crayfish. What to do? So, into the autoclave 5lbs pressure for 5 minutes. Excellent, beautifully tender. But wait, every time the autoclave exhausted for the next 2 years the smell of crayfish permeated the lab.

Back to Alliance - Development Technologist I re-joined Alliance as the development technologist after a break raising family. There was a new Technical Manager, Arthur Ballantyne, a chemical engineer, who brought a new perspective to development.

Up until this time product had been exported either frozen as whole carcases, cuts and boneless meat. New technology was being suggested that could extend the shelf life of ‘fresh’ product in time to reach the market 6 weeks shipping away.

Shipping chilled lamb Thus began an extensive project on producing chilled lamb utilising processing, packing and storage methodologies to extend its shelflife. Many a "St Patricks day" carton of chilled lamb appeared, green in colour due to incorrect packaging and air ingress. It was soon realised that product needed to be produced in the most hygienic conditions possible to reduce the microbiological loading and thus extend shelf life. So, we developed the Alliance Group Limited (AGL) processing manual for chilled lamb. This involved sourcing the areas of contamination along the processing chain and modifying the practice as best as possible.

Along with this was the chilling process and finding the best holding temperature, avoiding the formation of ice crystals. This also involved tracking the temperature en-route to market. MIRINZ had developed a robust temperature logger that withstood harsh conditions. These loggers were placed in specific cartons of chilled lamb when loaded into containers. The data loggers' positions were typically, middle, front, and by door. The loggers were returned from the market, data downloaded and analysed. The worst cases of temperature abuse were on airfreight assignments when the pallets had been obviously left outside on the tarmac at different airports!

This work involved MIRINZ and packaging companies and was seen as a way forward for the industry. Not only were lamb cuts being used – an effort was made to package whole carcases. Many attempts occurred with learnings along the way and eventually success was achieved.

Chilled lamb is now a standard product produced from New Zealand.

Work is currently being done to try and extend the shelf life to 90 – 110 days as sea freight adopts "slow steaming" to minimise fuel usage.

The technology was also used on beef cuts with greater success. These tended to be whole muscles and boneless rather than multiple muscles within a lamb cut which usually contain at least some bone and require extra packaging, bone guard, to avoid puncturing the external packaging.

All in all, chilled lamb was a game changer for the meat industry.

Conditioning and Aging of lamb Another land mark was the work on Conditioning and Aging. MIRINZ had developed a method which took 72 hours of drying and chilling and was also time consuming to administer. With Arthur’s backing I took on the task of changing this method to decrease the process to 24 hours and reduce weight loss during the process. Many experimental chiller loads of carcases followed using temperature monitoring equipment, August/September 2021

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JCA Address

As NZIFST Immediate Past President, Margot Buick, second from right, with the 1995/6 NZIFST executive, from left, Frances Bostock (Honorary Secretary), Andrew Cleland, (Vice-President), Tanya Reed (née Beggs),(President) and Marie MacDonald (Honorary Treasurer) anemometer, weighing and micro testing. Regulations would not allow this new method to be used unless it was approved by MIRINZ. I can still remember the day Brian Crystal and his team arrived on site to review the process. Approval was given and accelerated conditioning and ageing, with some fine tuning, became the industry standard.

On tenderness and flavour Our understanding of consumers' perception of tenderness in the market was not well understood at the time. So I decided that we would in collaboration with importers, identify the level of tenderness that the market preferred. This involved sending racks of lamb to the specific market with cooking and tasting instructions. The opposite rack from each carcase was retained in storage and tenderometer testing performed on each rack. The outcome was that the UK like a bit of a bite, EU slightly more tender and US mush.

We also developed sensory tests to try and understand the complaints of varying taste in lamb over the season. This went from milk feed to grass and supplementary feed. Taste, of course, varies with age but it was the lambs fed in the latter part of the season on turnips and swedes that gave the off-taste.

I was involved in assessing the new breeds being introduced into the New Zealand sheep flock, including Texel’s, for both their growth rate, yield and meat-eating qualities. We also did work on stress in relation to tenderness by applying different methods to an equally divided flock.

There was also a large project on tenderisation for Bernard Matthews at this time which could have been used as an industrial PhD. Amazing what we did when I think about it.

NZIFST It was during my time at Alliance that I became active in the Institute.

I chaired the Southland/Otago Branch. We, the southern contingent, used to travel up to Dunedin regularly for meetings, a round trip of 408kms. Only once did we manage to get them to come south and only as far as Gore.

Laurie Melton was at Otago then and encouraged me to stand for VicePresident and the rest is history. I served the Institute as Vice-President, President and then Immediate Past-President. I introduced standard operating procedures while in office which were much needed. We had an energetic and youthful team at this time. It heartens me to see a younger and diverse group prepared to serve the Institute now.

I was a judge for what has now become the Massey University Food Awards for 10 years. This was a really interesting experience in being able to evaluate all the new products coming onto the 20

Food New Zealand

market and recognise the product development behind them.

I came out of the woodwork to become National Treasurer, 2013 to 2015, and have been a member of NZIFST Council and Executive. I was the second woman President and the first female MC at a Conference dinner (Christchurch, 2019). You see I was determined to show women are just as effective leaders as men.

Management and governance It became time for a change, so I joined the Massey Food Technology Research Centre as Commercial Manager. At FTRC, which Mary Earle established, my role was pivotal in growing the business portfolio and managing the Centre to become a profitable, effective and commercially successful venture. This was the first time in its history that the Centre ran as a full-cost-recovery business and we generated a significant profit every year I was there. Ray Winger and Andrew Cleland were both strong supporters during this time. I also took this opportunity to complete an MBA while at Massey.

And then it was off to MIRINZ as Commercial Manager just as the sun was unfortunately sinking on that productive research organisation due to the lack of funding from the industry. The demise of MIRINZ still saddens me as it was a world leading research Institute. The R&D that had been developed over the years is still used by industry.

AgResearch ultimately purchased MIRINZ and I joined them as a Commercial Manager – going to the dark side, as my science-based colleagues called it. The role was responsible for development, commercialisation and technology transfer into defined markets for products and technologies developed by AgResearch. This was an interesting time working in applied science pulling technology through to commercialisation and providing for the needs of industry.

Governance My governance career began in Invercargill when I was appointed to the SouthPort Board in 1993. Southland Farmers Coop and Taranaki Farmers followed. Then Directorships in Meat Biologics Consortium, Ultrafine Merino Company, DEEResearch, Nutrigenomics New Zealand, and BioProducts (NZ) Limited (Chair). My current appointments include AsureQuality, MIA Innovation Ltd, Mondeur Trust and NZIDT (Chair).

All of these companies have been involved in food and agriculture, what better industries to serve.

Thank you to the Institute for the JC Andrews award and I am very conscious of the honour paid to me. Thank you to the many people in the teams that I have been privileged to work with. It really is all about the people, He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

Sliding On

Sliding on Got the munchies?

Professor John D Brooks, FNZIFST John Brooks' view of the microbiological world as often seen on the glass slide of a microscope Hands up anyone who, at any time during their lifetime, has scraped the cake mixing bowl and eaten the residues, or eaten raw cookie dough? Yes, I see a lot of you with your hands up! In a survey by Ardent Mills, Minnesota, 73% of respondents admitted to eating raw homemade cookie dough and 57% allowed children to lick the bowl and spoon after mixing cakes, while 65% admitted to eating storebought cookie dough without cooking. In a 2009 outbreak of Escherichia coli O157 food poisoning in 30 U.S. states, 77 patients, mostly young females, contracted the illness and 35 were hospitalised. A common factor revealed in the investigation was consumption of commercial raw cookie dough produced in a single plant. As a result, 3.6 million packages of ready-to-bake cookie dough were recalled.

What's the problem?

beef and leafy greens. However, by the use of modern microbiological analytical techniques – Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis and Core Genome Multilocus Sequence Typing – they were able to show that the STEC O26:H11 isolates were different from those strains that had caused the ground beef illnesses in 2018.

How does flour, which is dry and doesn’t support bacterial growth, come to be involved in E.coli food poisoning transmitted in raw cookie dough? Wheat flour is grown outdoors and may be contaminated from soil or birds and animals. Cattle and deer have no cell receptors for Shiga toxin, so may carry the toxigenic bacteria without ill effect. The milling process generally doesn’t include a lethal process step, so E.coli and Salmonella can survive into the finished product.

These vegetative cells are killed during cooking, but may be present in raw dough and cake batter.

Heat treatment of flour has been used in the past to I used to beg my Mum not to use a spatula to scrape destroy pathogens, but is expensive and has a negative all the mixture from the bowl. Mum didn’t know much impact on the properties of gluten, potentially making about food safety; she had no formal training and over the the flour unsuitable for baking. Various other treatments have years had learned how to bake. Many younger people are Eating raw cookie been proposed, including cold plasma, electron beam probably in the same boat. Most of us know that you can dough is a risk, but it and gamma irradiation, but these methods may meet with possibly pick up Salmonella food poisoning from eating may not be the eggs consumer resistance. undercooked eggs or chicken, and that the foods likely to give you food poisoning include leafy greens and sprouts, raw shellfish A company based in Ontario, Canada has recently developed an organic, and raw milk, though the latter usually ignites a flame war if you non-thermal treatment for flour that is a liquid added at the tempering publish comments. stage of milling. However, as far as I am aware, this treatment is not yet So if you are asked why you should not eat raw cookie dough, what will you say is the risk? Salmonella in the uncooked eggs, right?

But what about the flour?

In 2016, ten million pounds of raw flour were recalled owing to contamination with Escherichia coli. That year, the U.S. FDA and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention investigated infections

by E.coli O121 occurring across the country. Some serotypes of this bacterium can produce Shiga toxins. A great deal is now known about Shiga toxins, but for our purposes here, we can say that ingestion of the toxin results in abdominal pain and watery diarrhoea, but may also cause haemorrhagic colitis, which is far more serious.

The April 23 edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report discussed multi-state outbreaks of E.coli O26:H11 infections linked to raw flour in 2019. The investigators initially thought that ground beef was the source of the infection – patients interviewed reported eating ground

used in commercial flour production.

What about making home-made raw cookie dough safe? It is extraordinarily difficult to find information on how to pasteurise raw flour at home to make raw cookie dough treats. One blogger has described home pasteurisation of flour, using a 1200 watt microwave oven to heat the flour to 71C with a 55 second treatment. She based this treatment on advice from FDA and I estimate that the flour receives an F0 of around 4.

FDA is now pushing the message “Don’t eat any raw cookie dough, cake mix, batter, or any other raw dough or batter product that is supposed to be cooked or baked” and “Follow package directions for cooking products containing flour at proper temperatures and for specified times”.

Indeed, some packages of flour in US now have a label warning consumers to “Cook before sneaking a taste”.

Still want to risk it?

August/September 2021

21

Spotlight

Telarc – the one-stop shop for quality, certification and registration

Some readers will remember Telarc, the New Zealand Government's laboratory accreditation authority that operated from the 1970s into the 1990s. A Telarc-accredited independent laboratory or company-based laboratory provided end users with confidence of any laboratory test results undertaken. Telarc Accreditation meant that that laboratory had achieved a regulated standard in all aspects of operation.

In the 1990s it was decided that accreditation bodies were not able to co-exist with Certification bodies due to an increasing level of concern around impartiality. This led to a logical split, with Laboratory Accreditation being the responsibility of IANZ. Telarc was then able to focus its business on providing certification services across a variety of industries and standards. Today Telarc certifies in excess of 1,700 clients across a range of standards in the construction, service delivery, processing, manufacturing, food and wine sectors, to name a few.

Telarc in the food sector Telarc is New Zealand's largest, locally based, management system auditing body. Telarc conducts audits utilising experienced New Zealand based and trained auditing professionals. The organisation prides itself on using a value delivery approach to their audits, ensuring clients can implement and continually improve their systems in accordance with the required standard. Their certification services cover Health & Safety, quality, environmental, food and wine.

Telarc Chief Executive Officer, Philip Cryer, explains that supporting the certification requirements for the food and wine sector is part of being a New Zealand company. “We operate in a country that relies heavily on primary production. Telarc has identified that organisations are increasingly required to have numerous certifications that cover numerous aspects of business from Quality to Food Safety to Environmental to Health & Safety, and beyond. Standards apply across a number of dimensions that determine the way a business needs to be run. Compliance is becoming increasingly important and companies need their certification requirements undertaken by a respected, impartial professional organisation that operates to the highest standards."

"Well run companies value certification. They see their annual certification assessment as a value add experience. It is understood that a well developed and managed systems protects their businesses, and their people as well as our country's reputation as a provider of quality food and wine products and services."

To operate anywhere in the food and wine sector in the 2020s requires consumers to trust that a supplier is operating in a manner that creates and delivers trust. This holds whether you are selling over the counter in a pop-up container, or shipping containers of food or wine over thousands of miles, by sea or air. Much is made of the statistic that we produce enough food to feed 40 million people. As a nation of 5 million we export our surplus to support our economy: food is our biggest export earner. The economy of New Zealand relies on the quality and reliability of our food and wine exports which is supported by a 22

Food New Zealand

Telarc CEO, Philip Cryer framework of food and wine safety regulation, compliance, auditing and compliance.

Certification by an accredited body provides buyers confidence that the company they are buying from is complying with local regulations and/ or an internationally recognised global food standard. This in turn gives buyers confidence that products from their operation can be trusted that they are fit for purpose.

Expertise Telarc's focus is to build and offer capable people who can support a one-stop-shop certification service across a multitude of standards.

Telarc has existing clients who are audited against Quality (ISO 9001), Environmental (ISO 14001), MPI-regulated Food & Wine as well as internationally recognised Food Safety standards. It is not unusual in this day and age for a team of Telarc auditors to be required to audit 5 – 6 standards for one client at one annual visit. This approach, known as an integrated audit, provides organisations with the ability to optimise their people’s time and reduce the number of audit interventions required to retain certification.

Telarc is able to certify to the majority of the commonly used standards that will be utilised in local and international markets.

Telarc employs 50 staff with a mix of skills to cover the sectors they operate in. Seven of these work in the food area full time and Telarc has a number of highly skilled contractors who work as required, for

Spotlight

Telarc is able to certify to the majority of the commonly used standards that will be utilised in local and international markets example in regions not covered by permanent staff. Telarc people are assessed and approved for competence to the standards they work with. In food, most clients are manufacturers, although Telarc works with domestic meat operations, plus food service, wine and some food retail operations.

"We have not had a presence in the food market for a while," continues Philip, "So we want to articulate that we are here and can offer an integrated audit as an alternative to existing customary suppliers."

Telarc prides itself on conducting audits to a high level. This ensures the company's being assessed does meet local regulatory requirements as well as complying with international standards when required. This gives Telarc’s clients confidence that products produced from their operation can be trusted - that they are fit for purpose and safe to consume. Their customers can then in turn trust the products from that company.

More information at www.telarc.org

August/September 2021

23

Engineering

Spray-, or freeze-drying for Lactoferrin?

Jolin Morel (Massey University), Norbaizura Md Zain (Massey University) and Richard Archer (Massey University and Riddet Institute) Called pink gold by those in the trade, lactoferrin has seen recent dramatic growth in demand, driven primarily by the premium infant formula category. Morinaga was first to launch an infant formula containing lactoferrin back in 1986. Since then, demand from infant formula manufacturers has grown with prices for lactoferrin ingredient peaking around USD3,000 per kg in recent years14.

Lactoferrin as a product of commerce Lactoferrin is found in biological fluids including saliva, amniotic fluid, tears and in the serum phase of milk ¹². It is a key component of breast milk. This, and its presence in bovine milk, makes it of great interest to the New Zealand dairy industry, which now has four manufacturers of high quality lactoferrin isolate for export sale. This strength stems from research work at NZDRI in the late 1970s, ultimately resulting in first manufacture by Tatua late in the early 1990s, with Fonterra, Synlait and Westland following considerably later. Tatua has licensed its technology to several companies in Australasia.

Global lactoferrin manufacturing capacity is currently around 450 tonnes. Recently announced investments will increase that to over 600 tonnes within 2-3 years14. The key standard for manufacturers to meet is the China GB standard for lactoferrin GB1903.17-2016, now recognised as the global benchmark. China is currently planning a review of this standard and consulting with both manufacturers and users. Lactoferrin purity and bioactivity are both topics being reviewed.

Lactoferrin is a globular glycoprotein of ca. 80kDa displaying several bioactivities. It has iron binding as well as separate anti-microbial properties and plays an important role in the immune system of infants.

When saturated with iron, lactoferrin shrinks to a more compact form which makes it more heat stable7. Heat stability is an important consideration during drying as the infant formula manufacturing market prefers its lactoferrin undenatured and pricing strongly reflects the undenatured content.

Drying converts lactoferrin concentrate to the powder form which is the standard shelf-stable article of commerce suitable for transport, storage and sale. Two drying methods are typically used industrially: freezedrying and spray drying. These compete for the application round the world. Recent increases in market demand have increased the number of aspiring lactoferrin manufacturers having to select between the drying options. Lactoferrin is only a minor component of bovine milk so the scale of dryer is small in the dairy context and might typically be around 25 kg/h water removal. This limits some of the economies of scale that spray drying normally offers the processor. The choice may be more balanced around the issue of level of denaturation, the contest being between the very rapid high temperature of spray drying and the longer time at much lower temperatures of freeze drying. Which is better?

24

Food New Zealand

Previous work has showed little difference in the functionality of lactoferrin dried by either spray drying or freeze-drying18. However, these authors used laboratory-scale bench-top equipment which may not adequately reproduce the product experience of full scale.

In particular, particle thermal histories vary with scale and format. Air residence times can be ten times longer in pilot-scale spray dryers than in benchtop spray driers16. Additionally, a counter-current configuration, as used in the current study, extends particle residence time over typical co-current benchtop units, to offer residence times closer to those of small manufacturing units of the lactoferrin industry. Industrially, where cycle time is critical, relatively aggressive freeze-drying programmes are typical, with final shelf temperatures often exceeding those presented in scientific literature.

This current work is designed to help those choosing between the two drying methods for Lactoferrin. It investigated the effects of drying method on denaturation as determined calorimetrically, on iron binding capacity, and on antimicrobial activity of bovine lactoferrin. Drying was conducted using a freeze-dryer that replicates industrial heating geometries, tray materials and dimensions, and heating programmes; and using a pilot-scale production spray dryer.

The extent of denaturation was determined relative to raw lactoferrin concentrate “as received” from a New Zealand dairy factory. This concentrate was in exactly the form from which it would have been dried at the factory. Impact on iron binding capacity was investigated by measuring the iron uptake of as received and of dried lactoferrin upon incubation in an iron-rich solution. And antimicrobial activity was investigated by incubating three bacteria against serial dilutions of asreceived or reconstituted dried lactoferrin.

Methods Full details of the methods used are given in our published paper in the International Dairy Journal¹³.

Materials Lactoferrin solution was obtained from the Tatua Dairy Co-Operative Company at 16-18% TS and ≥95% lactoferrin on a solids basis. The lactoferrin had been commercially extracted from fresh pasteurised skim milk using an agarose based strong cation exchanger. It had then been concentrated by ultrafiltration and finished by microfiltration to minimise microbial loads.

Spray drying We spray-dried the lactoferrin concentrate with a GEA Niro Mobile Minor spray drier located in the FoodPilot at Massey University, Palmerston North (shown in Figure 1). The inlet temperature was 190°C for all runs and the outlet temperature was controlled at either 75°C and 95°C. These conditions are referred to as 190/75 and 190/95 in this article.

Engineering

Powder Analysis Particle size of the spray-dried lactoferrin was analysed by dynamic light scattering with a Malvern Mastersizer 3000. Moisture content was determined by drying at 100°C under a vacuum of at least 85 kPa for 18 hours.

Aerobic and Anaerobic plate counts were conducted in the Massey University School of Food & Advanced Technology Microbiology Laboratory. Samples were incubated on Standard Plate Count Agar for 48 hrs at 30°C under aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

Electron microscopy was carried out at the Manawatu Microscopy and Imaging Centre, Massey University, Palmerston North, using a FEI Quanta 200 Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).

Lactoferrin functional properties after drying Dried lactoferrin samples were dissolved in water and heated from 20°C to 100°C at 5 K min-1 in a Q2000 Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC). Extent of denaturation we calculated from the relative enthalpies of the first denaturation peak of the sample and of the as-received lactoferrin20: %Denatured=(1-∆Hsample/∆ H/as-received)*100 (1)

Figure 1: GEA Niro Spray-Drier in Massey University FoodPilot Samples were collected from the collection vessels at the base of the main chamber cone and cyclone, sealed in moisture-, oxygen-, and UV-impermeable bags and then stored at 0-2°C until further handling and analysis.

Freeze Drying Lactoferrin concentrate was freeze-dried in a Cuddon FD-18 freeze drier (Cuddon NZ), located in the FoodPilot (shown in Figure 2).

We froze lactoferrin solution in place on the freeze-dryer shelves at -40°C and a depth 12-15 mm. Once concentrate was fully frozen, drying was started. We used a temperature/time programme which mimics that used on industrial scale freeze-dryers used for lactoferrin drying. After drying, we broke up the lactoferrin cake manually and then pooled, sub-sampled and sealed the dried material in foil bags and stored it at 0-2°C.

To determine iron-binding capacity, we dissolved samples of dried lactoferrin in Tris buffer with NaHCO3, at a pH of 7.8. This was mixed with a solution of Fe(NO3)3 and Nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), in a Lf:Fe:NTA ratio of 1:2:5, and then excess Fe was removed by gel filtration.

Protein concentrations were determined using the Bradford protein assay, and the iron content was measured using a PinAAcle 900Z Graphite-Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometer.

To investigate anti-microbial properties, inocula of Escherichia coli NCTC 8196, Cronobacter sakazakii ASQ 5, and Salmonella typhimurium were added to 96-well plates containing Lactoferrin at between 0.01 and 3.0 mg mL- 1. These plates were incubated at 37°C, and bacterial growth was measured after at 0, 8, 24, and 48 hours by absorbance at 620nm to gauge the level of growth inhibition.

After 48 hours, contents of each well were spread onto media and incubated for 24 and 48 hours to test for microbial survival.

Results and Discussion Received lactoferrin The lactoferrin as received had a total solids content of 17.4±0.4%. All anaerobic and aerobic plate counts of the as-received material were < 1 cfu/mL. Coliform counts of the as-received material were < 3 MPN/10mL. The incoming material was microbially very clean.

Drying performance and dried powder characteristics

Figure 2: Cuddon FD-18 vacuum freeze-dryer in Massy University FoodPilot

All samples dried easily in the spray drier and freeze-drier. There was minimal hold-up on the spray drier chamber walls, and in the ducting and cyclone. The product formed a friable cake (shown in Figure 3) after freeze-drying, with no foaming or collapse occurring for any drying run. The Cuddon FD-18 was designed to scale directly to and from larger Cuddon freeze-dryers, indicating that performance would be similar on a production scale.

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Engineering the freeze-dried samples, so the particles were significantly larger than the spray dried particles. The striated structures we interpreted as being formed by the removal of ice crystals during freeze-drying.

Drying Effects on Lactoferrin functional properties

Figure 3: Cross-sectional view of freeze-dried lactoferrin cake The particle size distribution of the two spray dried samples is shown in figure below.

Typical DSC curves for each sample are shown in Figure 6. These two peaks represent the denaturation of the apo- and holo- forms of lactoferrin, with the more heat stable holo-lactoferrin denaturing above 79°C and the more heat labile apo-lactoferrin denaturing between 5262°C10. The temperature at which these peaks occur is affected by the pH at which denaturation occurs. The presence of both peaks indicates that the lactoferrin as-received, and dried were partially iron saturated10.

No renaturation was seen in the selected samples that were re-scanned though a second temperature cycle.

Figure 4: Particle Size Distribution for spray dried samples The volume-weighted mean diameters are greater than those reported in previous literature19, as a result of the larger drier used for this study, and would have experienced harsher thermal histories17. The dried lactoferrin that we produced also had lower moisture levels than reported in previous comparison studies, which had moisture levels above what would be expected for commercially produced lactoferrin.

Volume-weighted Mean Diameter (µm)

Moisture (%)

FD

This study

(B. Wang et al., 2017)

This study

(B. Wang et al., 2017)

Commercially Spray Dried

0.55

2.7

N/A

N/A

N/A 57.1

190/75

6.39

8.6

30.2

12.9

190/95

3.92

5.2

17

12.8

Table 1: Volume-weighted mean diameter and moisture levels, as measured in this study, with comparison against values previously reported literature

Electron Microscopy

Figure 6: Typical DSC curves for lactoferrin samples before and after drying treatments. From top to bottom: 190/75, 190/95, FD, as received There were no significant differences between any treatment in the onset temperature of either denaturation peak, and no significant differences in the location of the peak maximum for the second denaturation peak, and peak locations were all similar to those previously reported for native bovine lactoferrin at native pH 10, 20.

There were no significant differences between treatments for the peak enthalpy of the second denaturation peak. This may be as the more heat stable holo-lactoferrin present did not experience a severe enough temperature history to cause denaturation even for the 190/95 treatment.

There was a significant difference between treatments for the peak enthalpy of the first denaturation peak (∆H1). The “as received” lactoferrin had the greatest ∆H1, followed by the FD treatment and the two spray dried treatments. There was no significant difference between ∆H1 of the 190/75 and 190/95 treatments. Using the “as received” treatment as a reference, the extent of denaturation of apolactoferrin was calculated. This is shown in Figure 7.

All samples showed some denaturation relative to “as-received” lactoferrin, however, the extent of denaturation for the two spray-dried treatments,190/75 and 190/95, was significantly greater than for the FD treatment.

Figure 5: Electron micrographs of dried lactoferrin. Spray dried powders are shown at a magnification of 800x and freezer dried flakes at a magnification of 100x. A: 190/75 treatment. B: 190/95 treatment. C:FD treatment Spray dried samples had smooth surfaces with minimal buckling or wrinkling and a limited amount of particle aggregation.

Freeze-dried lactoferrin flakes had a smooth surface. We did not mill 26

Food New Zealand

The spray-dried samples also showed much higher levels of denaturation than reported by others, who observed 0.9-2.0% denaturation for spraydried and freeze-dried lactoferrin, using laboratory equipment19.

Our study mimicked industrial production conditions much more closely, by using a larger drier which made particles of sizes closer to industrially relevant, and with a longer powder residence time than previous studies. The freeze-dryer also mimics the thermal environment of production units closely, and the drying conditions and programme used were identical to those used at industrial production scales, with

Engineering higher temperatures during the primary and secondary drying steps than previously reported. The spray-dried powders we produced were significantly drier than those produced by earlier researchers, indicating a harsher thermal history is likely.

Figure 7: The measured enthalpy of denaturation for the first and second denaturation peaks, and the extent of denaturation, compared to the as-received samples. Error bars are 95% CI for the mean. Samples that do not share an annotation are significantly different The molar Fe:Lf ratio of samples before and after incubation with an iron-rich solution is shown in Figure 8, below. We found no significant difference between the molar Fe:Lf ratio of samples prior to incubation.

After incubation the freeze-dried samples showed more iron binding activity and bound significantly more iron than either spray-dried sample.

Figure 8: The molar Fe:Lf ratio observed before and after incubation at a 1:2:5 molar Lf:Fe:NTA ratio. Error bars are 90% CI for the mean. Samples that do not share an annotation are significantly different The iron binding ability of lactoferrin results from specific iron binding sites in the N and C lobes of the protein which can reversibly bind to ionic iron.¹¹ The molecule becomes more compact and resistant to denaturation after binding iron20.

Denaturation of lactoferrin alters the molecule’s secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure, which can reduce the iron binding capacity of the molecule. We found this in our study, as spray-dried lactoferrin displays

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Engineering significantly lower molar Fe:Lf ratios than the freeze-dried lactoferrin, which showed lower extent of denaturation.

been found to be antimicrobial against E. coli at concentrations of 12.5 µg/mL ³, and against L. monocytogenes at 6.3 µg/mL 9

The absorbance of all wells inoculated with lactoferrin solutions, at all dilutions and for all lactoferrin drying treatments, was reduced when compared to the control wells after 8 and 24 hours of incubation, indicating that even at extremely low lactoferrin concentrations, spray dried and freeze-dried lactoferrin acted as a microbial inhibitor.

As a result of these antimicrobial mechanisms beyond iron-binding it is not surprising that differences in iron-binding capacity that we saw did not translate directly to differences in antimicrobial activity. Additionally, any differences in antimicrobial levels in Lf may be less significant after digestion in vivo and release of lactoferricin.

The well contents of all samples, all dilutions and all organisms, spread onto plates after 48 hours of incubation showed growth. This shows that there was little bactericidal activity for any concentration or treatment of lactoferrin.

Conclusions

Bacterial growth curves are shown in Figures 9 to 11.

Lactoferrin displays antimicrobial activities which are independent of its ability to sequester iron1,5 but rather are linked to its ability to interact with the surface of microbial cells5, 2. The addition of divalent ion such as Ca2+ or Mg2+ appears to reduce the antimicrobial effects of lactoferrin, as does the presence of some buffering compounds 1, 15.

The growth phase of bacteria affects their susceptibility to lactoferrin, with the highest susceptibility seen in the early log phase5.

Lactoferricin can be produced during natural digestion of lactoferrin and has a higher degree of bactericidal activity than the parent lactoferrin6, 8). Lactoferricin interacts with bacterial cell membranes and compromises their function, leading to cell death6. The region of lactoferrin containing the lactoferricin peptide sequence, the N-terminal region, has been linked to the binding of lactoferrin to lipopolysaccharides on the surface of E. coli 4. These peptides have FIGURE 9

In this study we found that the drying method can indeed have a significant effect on the extent of denaturation and iron binding properties of lactoferrin, when undertaken at time/temperature trajectories mimicking industrial scale. Spray-dried lactoferrin was more highly denatured than freeze-dried or fresh and it showed lower iron-binding capacity. Drying method had no significant effect on the antimicrobial effects of reconstituted dried lactoferrin. When using equipment within an order of magnitude of industrial scale, and under conditions intended to simulate industrial practice, it appears that freeze drying results in a closer to native dried lactoferrin than does spray drying. Whether the difference is large enough to swing the choice of method is a commercial decision for each manufacturer. Furthermore, laboratory scale investigation, while a good first step, does not always adequately mimic industrial scale drying.

Acknowledgements This work was funded by Cuddon Freeze Dry Ltd and the lactoferrin concentrate used in this study was provided by the Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd.

Figure 9: Growth of E. coli NCTC 8196 cultures over 48 hours in wells in the presence of 5 different lactoferrin concentrations as measured by absorbance at 620 nm.

Lactoferrin concentrations are 0, 0.01, 0.1, 0.3, 1, and 3 mg/ mL. Each plot represents one lactoferrin drying treatment.

AR is the lactoferrin asreceived, FD is the freezedried lactoferrin, 190/75 and 190/75 are spray dried treatments. The numbers represent the inlet and outlet temperatures of the spraydrier in °C

Figure 10: (Above right) Growth of S.typhimurium cultures over 48 hours in wells in the presence of 5 different lactoferrin concentrations as measured by absorbance at 620 nm. Lactoferrin concentrations are 0, 0.01, 0.1, 0.3, 1, and 3 mg/mL. Each plot represents one lactoferrin drying treatment. AR is the lactoferrin as-received, FD is the freeze-dried lactoferrin, 190/75 and 190/75 are spray dried treatments. The numbers represent the inlet and outlet temperatures of the spraydrier in °C 28

Food New Zealand

Engineering FIGURE 10

References 1. Arnold, R. R., Russell, J. E., Champion, W. J., & Gauthier, J. J. (1981). Bactericidal activity of human lactoferrin: influence of physical conditions and metabolic state of the target microorganism. Infection and Immunity, 32(2), 655-660.

2. Bortner, C. A., Arnold, R. R., & Miller, R. D. (1989).

Bactericidal effect of lactoferrin on Legionella pneumophila: effect of the physiological state of the organism. Canadian Journal of Microbiology, 35(11), 1048-1051. doi:10.1139/ m89-174 3. Dionysius, D. A., & Milne, J. M. (1997). Antibacterial Peptides of Bovine Lactoferrin: Purification and Characterization. Journal of Dairy Science, 80(4), 667-674. doi:10.3168/jds.S0022-0302(97)75985-X 4. Elass-Rochard, E., Roseanu, A., Legrand, D., Trif, M., Salmon, V., Motas, C., Spik, G. (1995). Lactoferrinlipopolysaccharide interaction: Involvement of the 28-34 loop region of human lactoferrin in the high-affinity binding to Escherichia coli 055B5 lipopolysaccharide. Biochemical Journal, 312(3), 839-845. doi:10.1042/bj3120839 5. Farnaud, S., & Evans, R. W. (2003). Lactoferrin—a multifunctional protein with antimicrobial properties.

Molecular Immunology, 40(7), 395-405. doi:https://doi. org/10.1016/S0161-5890(03)00152-4 6. Farnaud, S., Patel, A., Odel, E. W., & Evans, R. W. (2004). Variation in antimicrobial activity of lactoferricin-derived peptides explained by structure modelling. FEMS Microbiology Letters, 238(1), 221-226. doi:10.1111/j.1574-6968.2004.tb09759.x 7. Franco, I., Pérez, M. D., Conesa, C., Calvo, M., & Sánchez, L. (2018). Effect of technological treatments on bovine lactoferrin: An overview. Food Research International, 106, 173-182. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2017.12.016 8. Gifford, J. L., Hunter, H. N., & Vogel, H. J. (2005).

Lactoferricin: a lactoferrin-derived peptide with antimicrobial, antiviral, antitumor and immunological properties. Cell Mol Life Sci, 62(22), 2588-2598. doi:10.1007/ s00018-005-5373-z

FIGURE 11

9. Hoek, K. S., Milne, J. M., Grieve, P. A., Dionysius, D. A., & Smith, R. (1997). Antibacterial activity in bovine lactoferrinderived peptides. Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy, 41(1), 54-59. doi:10.1128/aac.41.1.54 10. Iafisco, M., Foltran, I., Di Foggia, M., Bonora, S., & Roveri, N. (2011). Calorimetric and Raman investigation of cow’s milk lactoferrin. Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry, 103(1), 41-47. doi:10.1007/s10973-010-1084-2 11. Levay, P. F., & Viljoen, M. (1995). Lactoferrin: a general review. Haematologica, 80(3), 252.

12. Lönnerdal, B. (2003). Lactoferrin. In P. F. Fox & P. L. H. McSweeney (Eds.), Advanced Dairy Chemistry—1 Proteins: Part A / Part B (pp. 449-466). Boston, MA: Springer US. 13. Morel, J., Md Zain, S. N., & Archer, R. (2021).

Comparison of drying techniques for bovine lactoferrin: Iron binding and antimicrobial properties of dried lactoferrin.

International Dairy Journal, 105142. doi:https://doi. org/10.1016/j.idairyj.2021.105142 14. Powell, J. (2021, April). Lactoferrin: Strong long-term demand. NZ Food Technology News, p.14.

15. Robinson, C., Boxe, C. S., Guzmán, M. I., Colussi, A. J., & Hoffmann, M. R. (2006). Acidity of frozen electrolyte solutions. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 110(15), 76137616. doi:10.1021/jp061169n 16. Schmitz-Schug, I., Foerst, P., & Kulozik, U. (2013).

Impact of the spray drying conditions and residence time distribution on lysine loss in spray dried infant formula. Dairy Science & Technology, 93(4), 443-462. doi:10.1007/s13594013-0115-8 17. Walton, D. E. (2000). The Morphology of Spray-Dried Particles a Qualitative View. Drying Technology, 18(9), 19431986. doi:10.1080/07373930008917822 18. Wang, B., Timilsena, Y. P., Blanch, E., & Adhikari, B. (2017a). Characteristics of bovine lactoferrin powders produced through spray and freeze drying processes.

International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 95, 985994. doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2016.10.087

Figure 11: Growth of C. sakazakii ASQ 5 cultures over 48 hours in wells, in the presence of 5 different lactoferrin concentrations as measured by absorbance at 620 nm. Lactoferrin concentrations are 0, 0.01, 0.1, 0.3, 1, and 3 mg/mL. Each plot represents one lactoferrin drying treatment. AR is the lactoferrin as-received, FD is the freeze-dried lactoferrin, 190/75 and 190/75 are spray dried treatments. The numbers represent the inlet and outlet temperatures of the spray-drier in °C

19. Wang, B., Timilsena, Y. P., Blanch, E., & Adhikari, B. (2017). Characteristics of bovine lactoferrin powders produced through spray and freeze drying processes.

Int J Biol Macromol, 95, 985-994. doi:10.1016/j. ijbiomac.2016.10.087 20. Wang, B., Timilsena, Y. P., Blanch, E., & Adhikari, B. (2017b). Drying and denaturation characteristics of three forms of bovine lactoferrin. Drying Technology, 35(5), 606615. doi:10.1080/07373937.2016.1196699

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Forum

Dr Nick Smith from the Riddet Institute’s Sustainable Nutrition InitiativeTM programme, talking about global food systems and their impact on availability and affordability of nutrients

Plants and animals, not plants vs animals Dr Nick Smith of the Riddet Institute’s Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, and science writer, Glenda Lewis There were some surprising findings and a few reality checks at the Riddet Institute Feed our Future dialogue in Wellington, 9 June.

It's AND, nor OR All the delicious data from international and local speakers seemed to converge on one bottom line. We need plants AND animals to feed the world properly – that is, not just give the expected 10 plus billion people enough to eat in terms of energy and protein, but all the nutrients for optimum health and development. The evidence strongly points to the right balance of plant and animal food being more sustainable, more affordable, and least disruptive to our economies and cultural traditions.

of the drive towards plant-based diets. Everyone accepts that many people in the western world eat more than their fair share, especially of meat, and could benefit from eating a wider range of fruit, vegetables and wholegrains.

The DELTA model Riddet Institute Director, Distinguished Professor Harjinder Singh, made no bones about the fact that food technology is the next frontier for disruptive innovation – and that feeding an extra 2 billion, as well as the 2 billion who are currently malnourished (includes those who eat too much), will be a huge challenge for food scientists and technologists.

Our food production system is currently plant based, with plants making up 86% of food biomass leaving the farm gate. As speaker Associate Professor Hannah van Zanten (Wageningen University) pointed out, the right combination of plant and animal production allows for a circular food production system – plant food waste and plant matter that humans can’t eat can be used as animal feed. Conversely plants are fertilised with animal waste and animals utilise land unfit for crops.

He says a dichotomy between nutrition and environmental sustainability is widening. Worried that nutrition is coming a poor second, the Riddet Institute started a computer-based project called DELTA – as part of its Sustainable Nutrition Initiative™ – to model ways of feeding the world well, and then test different scenarios (e.g. reducing sugar production to free land for more nutritious crops, or reducing household waste) to fit sustainability boundaries. The model does not compromise on human nutrition.

The forum was by no means reactionary, but a scientific moderation

Dr Nick Smith is a researcher on the project and recently presented

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Forum

How does the DELTA Model work?

2018 population (7.6 billion)

2030 population (8.6 billion)

10.6 Bn tonnes

10.6 Bn tonnes

1.5 Bn tonnes (14%)

1.5 Bn tonnes (14%)

4.65 Bn tonnes (44%)

4.62 Bn tonnes (44%)

Energy

117%

105%

Protein

135%

119%

Fat

132%

118%

Calcium

64%

57%

Iron

100%

89%

4. Bioavailability scaling: specific nutrients are scaled for bioavailability – the ability of the body to utilise these nutrients when consumed in certain foods.

Potassium

100%

88%

Riboflavin

107%

94%

The total amount of bioavailable nutrients is then compared to the requirements of the global population. This can either be today’s population, or a forecast population in the future. DELTA considers the demographic makeup of these populations when calculating nutrient requirements, because not all individuals have the same nutrient needs.

Vitamin A

103%

91%

Vitamin B-12

107%

94%

Vitamin E

69%

59%

DELTA was developed using publicly available datasets from international organisations, complemented with key information from the scientific literature. It takes global food production totals and runs them through a calculation pipeline: 1. Allocation: food items are allocated to their uses.

This includes use as animal feed, processing into other food or non-food commodities, seed for the following growing seasons, and non-food use (such as sugar crops for biofuel production). The amount wasted along the supply chain is also deducted.

2. Consumer use: a substantial amount of food matter is not consumed, either because it is considered nonedible (such as animal bones and vegetable peel), or it is simply thrown away uneaten.

3. Conversion to nutrients: food composition data are used to convert the total amount of food consumed into a total amount of nutrients consumed. 29 essential nutrients are included.

Total food biomass production leaving farms and fisheries Amount of total biomass above used as animal feed Total food supply after waste Nutrient supply to the average global citizen (% of requirement)

Table 1: 2018 food production and nutrient supply, compared with using the same amount of food production to feed the 2030 population

some of its fascinating insights and trade-offs at the NZIFST conference.

The model is designed to be user friendly - you can go in and experiment yourself with changing the settings, and see the outcome for global nutrition.

Costs of eschewing animal nutrients

This profound statement is pivotal to the recently published paper on the model:

Dr Sylvia Chungchunglam and Distinguished Professor Paul Moughan have compared the lowest possible cost of a vegan diet, and one containing animal sourced foods – both complete in terms of energy and nutrients – using actual prices and availability in the US (the eagerly-awaited New Zealand version is currently under peer review).

The plant-only diet came out at almost twice as much at US$3.61 per day, compared to US$1.98 for the one with animal sourced foods. The latter was able to stand considerable increases in meat, seafood and dairy prices without exceeding the price of the vegan diet.

The DELTA Model demonstrates the numerous nutrient gaps that would emerge if food production followed these (predominantly or entirely plant based) dietary patterns. The results indicate the need for a more balanced approach: both animal and plant foods provide essential nutrients, and our current food production system supplies almost all the nutrients needed by the global population. Perhaps moderate refinements to this system and more equitable distribution would achieve sustainability without the need for radical changes towards unfamiliar production and dietary practices?

Reference doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxab199

At Feed our Future, Smith presented the rather astounding results of another Riddet Institute research project.

It’s all about nutrient density, or bang for buck.

Despite the fact that we are food rich, many New Zealanders lack calcium, iron, folate, vitamins C and E. One third of adolescent females are deficient in iron, reflecting either dietary choices or lack of them.

Calcium deficits in youth cannot be made up for later. One "Feed our Future" delegate commented that the costs of feeding “the bottom 20%” (of the New Zealand population) well would be less than the costs of them not eating properly.

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Alternative proteins It would not have been a future food forum without attention to synthetic meat and alternative proteins. There was a harsh reality check

by Professor Paul Wood from Monash University on the feasibility of scaling up cellular agriculture to make meat. He reeled off some stupendous numbers for the amount of plant, energy, feedstock, additives, and human resources required if you were to replace all naturally grown meat. There are “limits to biology”, he said – meaning the rate of, and complex nutrient requirements for, cell growth.

But to Dr Laura Domigan, a University of Auckland and Riddet Institute scientist at the meeting who is engaged in research on synthetic meat production, it is happening, it is inevitable, and accelerated by huge investment. She is confident that it will be one component of the feedthe-world equation, though probably no threat to our natural meat in the short term – as far as we can see, which is not very far.

Carbon emissions Fonterra-Riddet Chair of Consumer Science at Massey University, Professor Joanne Hort, explained that consumer choice of foods is largely unconscious DELTA draws attention to the glaring global deficit in calcium (34%) and Vitamin E (19%) – neither of which can be much improved, even by preventing 100% of food waste. People tend not to throw out milk and oils, and waste of nutrients is not uniform around the world, as emphasised in the talk from Professor Wayne Martindale. To make up for the global deficit in calcium, milk production would have to double by 2050. How is that going to happen within environmental and land competition constraints? Is supplementation the answer? Remedying the shortage of Vitamin E is similarly challenging because the Western diet does not include as much as it should, and simply supplementing diets with more vegetable oils – one of the densest sources of Vitamin E – would lead to undesirable increases in energy intake. There are minor amounts of vitamin E in many foods and getting enough is no problem in a well-balanced diet.

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Dr Stewart Ledgard from AgResearch presented data familiar to people in the primary sector about our second lowest-in-the-world carbon emissions from meat and dairy production, which he reframed and amplified by comparing CO2 emissions against nutrient density. He showed that fruit and vegetables can have a high carbon footprint too Hothouse tomatoes, which have become an urban staple, were almost off the graph. Again, the scientific evidence moderates extreme ideas about the need for a wholesale shift to entirely plant-based diets. There was talk of environmental labelling, which will be very scientifically demanding, but create new selling point opportunities for many New Zealand producers. We need to provide scientific proof to consumers, who have an increasing understanding of the nuances of environmental impacts: on land, on water, in the atmosphere and biodiversity.

Professor Thom Huppertz (Wageningen University & Research) focused on bioavailability of nutrients as the proper labelling index, not the nutrient content of a food as a fraction of RDI. In simple terms, the content of calcium or other nutrient in a food product is not the same as what is actually absorbed by the digestive system. Our access to many nutrients is dependent on the food structure they are contained

Forum

Hon. Steve Maharey CNZM setting the scene for a day of debate and discussion at Feed our Future in June 2021 in. The Riddet Institute is helping expand knowledge of bioavailability for a number of foods.

Professor Barbara Burlingame, Massey University (and former Deputy Director of Nutrition at FAO), advocated a less reductive, abstract approach to nutrition. She gave examples of more holistic and locally practical ways of improving overall nutrition and particular nutrient deficits. Children in Micronesia were going blind from lack of betacarotene. Researchers found that the local bananas varied hugely in carotene content. The commercial cultivar they’d been eating had less than 5 micrograms – they could have been substituted for local varieties that were no longer grown but had up to 8500 micrograms.

Burlingame said these differences show why losing crop biodiversity is such a worry.

Sociology of food choices Professor Frédéric Leroy, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, changed scale from micro-nutrients to the broad sweep of the history and philosophy of food, in particular killing and eating animals. He discussed the plant/

animal divide and the mass media portrayal of eating meat – the hyperbole of meat as harmful to humans and the environment. Meat has gone from being seen as “normal, necessary, nice and natural, to disgusting, abnormal and unnecessary”. Leroy quoted the popular saying, “it’s not the cow, but the how”. In his view, self-actualisation and status have become our priorities, and diet an important expression of identity.

When it comes to food, ultimately it’s not what scientists think, it’s about what consumers want to eat, and what they can afford to eat.

Consumer behaviour expert, Massey University Professor Joanne Hort, impressed on delegates that consumer choice is 95% subconscious.

“Price and taste are the key drivers,” she said. Many want sustainable foods, but they have to be tasty, easy to use, and “normalised” to be accepted and purchased longer term.

In summing up the forum, Dr John Roche, Chief Science Advisor at MPI, offered a final data morsel: The world needs to produce as much food in the next 30 years as we’ve produced in the last 2000 years. No pressure, food scientists and technologists.

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Meat

Meat industry news Will going meat-free really save the planet?

Independent research by some of the world’s leading scientists shows the climate change benefits of removing meat from the average New Zealander’s diet would only lead to a 3-4% decrease in an individual’s lifetime global warming impact from all activities, and could risk individuals missing out on key essential nutrients, such as iron.

The peer-reviewed research paper was developed by climate, nutrition and environmental scientists from the University of Oxford, Massey University, University of Auckland, the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, the Riddet Institute, Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka and the Ministry for Primary Industries. It has been published by the Switzerland-based Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) in the Sustainability Journal.

Reducing or eliminating meat consumption is often billed as one of the most effective ways for an individual to lower the climate impact of their lifestyle.

However, methane is a short-lived gas, whereas carbon dioxide is longlived and, therefore, accumulates in the atmosphere.

Cutting meat out of the diet offers greater benefits for the climate in the short-term, but over the long-term, most of these benefits reduce because the accumulation of carbon dioxide created by the alternative foods people would eat and the eventual removal of methane over the rest of their lifetime.

The research sought to analyse the cumulative atmosphere warming impact of following the national dietary guidelines and the substitution of meat.

The team used a new metric known as GWP*, as well as the current 100-year global warming potential (GWP100) metric, as GWP* better reflects the global warming dynamics of methane arising from the different diets.

As far as the researchers are aware, it is the first study to use GWP* to explore cumulative climate impacts of dietary transitions.

Fiona Windle, Head of Nutrition at Beef + Lamb New Zealand Inc says “We welcome this research because it assesses dietary impact within the context of lifetime emissions and suggests that ‘meat-free’ is not the silver bullet it is often made out to be.

“Whilst current environment footprint studies do not usually take into account the nutritional composition of foods, this paper highlights if you eliminate meat from the diet, then you are more likely to miss out on key nutrients such as iron, which is of great concern when we already have an iron deficiency challenge in New Zealand.

“The researchers were able to model a selection of micronutrients, based on available data and encouraged further research to broaden the analysis to better understand nutritional implications and climate change trade-offs in changing diets, such as sources of all the essential amino acids (found in quality protein foods).

“It is important that anyone transitioning to a new diet ensures it is sustainable from an affordability, nutritional and climate perspective”, says Fiona.

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Food New Zealand

Sam McIvor, Chief Executive of Beef + Lamb NZ Beef + Lamb New Zealand is pleased this study helps to better describe the impact that emissions of short-lived gases such as methane have on global temperature, and this will help policy makers make more informed decisions.

Additional reading: • The research paper can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/20711050/13/10/5568 • Eating a diet without meat would result in a 3-4% decrease of an individual’s lifetime global warming impact from all activities.

This is calculated by multiplying the average proportion of food and non-alcohol beverages emissions to an individual’s emission profile (26%) by the cumulative warming reduction of a healthy diet without meat (12-15%).

• Other individual New Zealander emissions include transport (33%), housing and housing utilities (14%) and recreation and culture (5%) according to Statistics NZ (2011-2017).

• The modelling study did not take into account carbon offsetting and farming practices that occur on New Zealand farms and contribute to environmental outcomes including carbon sequestration from trees on-farm.

• Further reading on the metrics GWP* and GWP100 can be found at https://www.flipsnack.com/fedfarm/the-role-of-sustainable-nzmeat-diary-in-feeding-final-vcs6jpxwb1/full-view.html

Meat UK-Australia FTA sets a benchmark for NZ negotiations The UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement represents a useful yardstick for negotiations between New Zealand and the United Kingdom, says New Zealand’s red meat sector.

“Based on reports, the Australian deal sets a useful baseline for the New Zealand-UK negotiations with eventual tariff-free access for sheepmeat and beef and zero tariff rates on in-quota trade in the interim,” says Sirma Karapeeva, chief executive of the Meat Industry Association.

“We will be looking to achieve a better outcome in the NZ-UK FTA and we look forward to a swift conclusion of our own FTA negotiations.

Unfortunately, we are still seeing a gap between rhetoric and action.”

Sam McIvor, chief executive of Beef + Lamb NZ, says the agreement is a significant milestone for the UK as it seeks to forge an independent trade policy post-Brexit. “It’s giving some better signals around the UK’s intentions to be a serious free trader. The UK/ Australia deal looks like it is a shift away from the EU protectionist model and this is welcome.”

Red meat sector welcomes immigration changes Immigration changes announced by the Government are welcome and will help ease some of the pressure on the red meat sector’s migrant workforce.

“Without this Visa extension, 100 of our 250 halal butcher workforce faced losing their right to stay in New Zealand next year,” says Sirma Karapeeva, chief executive of the Meat Industry Association (MIA).

“These roles are critical to supporting employment for thousands of other employees in the red meat sector, mainly in the regions, and the Government has clearly listened to our concerns.

“Without halal butchers, there is a real potential that the overall value of each animal processed is reduced, meaning less revenue for companies, farmers and the New Zealand economy. Halal processing generates over $3.3 billion of value-added halal-certified meat products.

“However, we still face ongoing challenges in recruiting enough halal butchers. New Zealand has a relatively small Muslim population and this means that the industry must recruit from overseas to make up for the shortfall.

That’s why we’re asking the Government to consider a more permanent solution that would facilitate the entry of migrant halal butchers such as a special visa category for halal butchers.”

Recruitment drive New Zealand’s red meat sector has launched a recruitment drive to attract halal butchers to the industry.

The sector requires around 250 halal processing people every year with approximately 100 of the roles typically filled by New Zealand residents or those with open work visas.

However, the closure of New Zealand’s borders due to the COVID-19 pandemic means migrant halal butchers and boners are unavailable and the industry is encouraging Muslim New Zealanders to consider a career in the sector.

Sirma Karapeeva, chief executive of the Meat Industry Association, said halal butchers are critical to supporting the meat processing industry, especially in regional communities where many plants are located.

Processing companies offer competitive wages and training for successful candidates. Applicants need to be currently entitled to work in New Zealand, be competent in the English language, medically and physically fit and prepared and able to work in regional New Zealand.

Contact halal@mia.co.nz. if you are interested.

August/September 2021

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Packaging

Industry Insight Reports for Save Food Packaging Design Nerida Kelton MAIP, Executive Director – Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP), Vice President Sustainability & Save Food – World Packaging Organisation (WPO) Both the AIP, as a peak professional body for packaging training and education, and the Australasian Packaging Innovation & Design (PIDA) Awards cover Australia and New Zealand. A number of the Best Practice case study examples for innovative and intuitive Save Food Packaging Design within the AIP Save Food packaging programmes and projects are from New Zealand, including Hazeldene Chickens and Fresh Technologies.

Sadly, Australia is one of the worst offenders for Food Waste and Loss in the world with a staggering 34% (2.5 million tonnes) of all food wasted in the household, followed very closely with 31% (2.3 million tonnes) in primary production. In economic terms, food waste in Australia has become a $20 Billion problem that sees each person waste on average 298 kg of food a year. Add to that the environmental impacts that sit behind food production including water, land, energy, labour, capital and the fact that far too much food waste is heading to landfill and creating greenhouse gas emissions.

Australia needs to build a sustainable food system that delivers food security, considers social, economic and environmental impacts and no longer sees food waste heading to landfill. This is where innovative Save Food Packaging (SFP) Design has a role to play within the Food System.

What is Save Food Packaging (SFP)?

Save Food Packaging uses innovative and intuitive design features that can contain and protect, preserve, extend shelf life, easily open and reseal, provide consumer convenience and portion control; all the while meeting global sustainable packaging targets.

To embed Save Food Packaging Design into businesses we first need to understand whether manufacturers consider food waste and loss, how packaging technologists are designing food packaging, if marketing is ensuring that on-pack communication provides the best messaging to consumers and what the barriers are to implement SFP strategies.

As a core participant of the Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre, the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) Save Food Packaging Design project has released two stakeholder industry insight reports that will help to set a baseline for current design practice and enable a path forward for areas of improvement.

The Save Food Packaging Consortium is made up of the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP) as project lead, RMIT as the Research Partner, Project Contributors will be Zipform Packaging, Sealed Air, Multivac and APCO, Project Partners are Plantic Technologies, Result Group and Ulma Packaging. The Extension Network consists of Australian Food Cold Chain Council (AFCCC), Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC), Australian Institute of Food Science and Technology (AIFST). The consortium is made up of experts who work 36

Food New Zealand

in Save Food Packaging Design to ensure that the project develops practical guidelines that are suitable for the industries they will serve.

The two reports are: 1. Industry Insights Report: Stakeholder Online Survey of ProductPackaging Design Processes 2. Industry Insights Report: Stakeholder Interviews of ProductPackaging Design Processes.

As Australia’s first industry-insight reports for Save Food Packaging these reports represent the current landscape of the food and packaging industry regarding perceptions and practices of food waste and Save Food Packaging.

Key insights Key insights include: 1. Key executive and management levels are unfortunately not claiming responsibility for food waste reduction with marketing standing out as the least invested.

2. Food waste mitigation considerations are mostly made in the early stages of the new product development (NPD) process and significantly less in the later stages.

3. Approximately 30% of stakeholders are unwilling to redesign a product’s packaging to save on food waste.

4. Terminology and definitions of Save Food Packaging Design features are still unclear and not fully recognised within the industry.

5. Active and Intelligent Packaging and Controlled Dispensing are the areas that underutilised.

6. Greater Save Food Packaging adoption within the food industry requires leaders to promote and give ‘case study’ examples of SFP value.

7. The greatest perceived barriers to Save Food Packaging adoption are that it adds cost and time to production and organisations lack resources.

8. Sustainability is also perceived by industry to be a Save Food Packaging function.

Packaging

The Gourmet Garden Herbs & Spices range has been designed to stay fresh for four weeks. The reusable stackable pots and recyclable refills minimise food waste and can be used directly from the freezer with no defrosting needed; which also extends shelf life

Industry Insights Report 2 Stakeholder Interviews of Product-Packaging Design Processes “...if there's some training involved that gets more people to understand the importance of considering that save food packaging design criteria really early in the process, then I think that will be beneficial.” Food manufacturer.

some of the recommended Save Food Packaging design features into your packs.

Download the full reports on the AIP website http://aipack.com.au/wp-content/uploads/FFWCRC121_SFPDC_ OnlineSurveyReport_final-25.11.20_v3.pdf http://aipack.com.au/wp-content/uploads/FFWCRC121_SFPDC_ InterviewIndustryReport_V2_reduced.pdf

This insight report reviews the expert knowledge and perceptions from stakeholder interviews, representing a range of organisations from the Australian food industry, evaluating current Save Food Packaging (SFP) Design and system implementation techniques.

Key insights include: 9. Considerations of SFP are currently occurring primarily at the beginning of the new product packaging development (NPPD) process.

10. Shelf life of a product is the first and most important consideration within NPPDs. 11. Consumer food waste data is relatively unknown within the industry, relying heavily on feedback and complaints for packaging design improvements.

12. Consumer demands and trends change quickly, making it difficult for the food industry to design appropriate products.

13. There is a need for enhanced consumer education on food waste versus packaging waste.

14. Organisations were divided in their marketing of SFP to consumers; some deeming it unnecessary and others essential by others.

15. Trade-offs between achieving the 2030 Food Waste Targets and the 2025 National Packaging Targets.

16. Case studies and training modules for roles and sectors were identified as the most appropriate form of SFP design criteria to be implemented into organisations. These are being developed by the Australian Institute of Packaging (AIP).

We look forward to working with Food and Beverage manufacturers to design innovative Save Food Packaging solutions that offer the lowest environmental impact and minimise food waste wherever possible.

We encourage everyone to access these reports and consider utilising August/September 2021

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L & N News

Echinacea has been used for hundreds of years to treat infections and wounds

Lipids and Nutraceuticals News Laurence Eyres FNZIFST and Mike Eyres B.Sc. One of us had a recent bad experience with an infection that turned to sepsis and whilst the heavy use of antibiotics was life-saving, the resulting adverse reaction led to hepatitis and liver damage.

Because the antibiotic therapy went on for several months, antibiotic resistance was begging to occur, and a superinfection was narrowly avoided. This event spurred us to look at what is happening in the world regarding the rise of antibiotic resistance and what is being done about it.

Natural Bioactives and Antibiotic Resistance The discovery of antibiotics has been one of the most important medical interventions in the history of global health. Antibiotics have been applied to reduce the morbidity and mortality caused by bacterial infections. Antibiotic therapy for infection is effective for a period followed by decreasing efficacy due to the development of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance in bacterial pathogens leads to the development of superbugs, prolonged hospital stays, higher medical costs, and increasing mortality rates. We noted that around 30-50% of people on antibiotics did not finish the course. This again assists bugs in developing resistance.

There is a remarkably interesting book called Miracle Cure: The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine detailing the history of antibiotic development from 1932 in Germany to the present day (Rosen, W. 2017). The book discusses the current challenges being faced with the rise of antibiotic resistance and superbugs globally and the issues with developing new antimicrobial drugs that is both a costly and time-consuming exercise.

Due to the issue of antibiotic resistance, and common adverse effects of antibiotics (it is estimated that 1 in 15 are allergic to an antibiotic), there is increasing impetus to find alternative treatments using natural compounds. However, as yet, there no evidence of equivalent efficacy to antibiotics. Researchers such as Cassandra Quave of the Quave Research Group in Atlanta are spearheading efforts to prospect new antimicrobial compounds from plants and fungi.

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Food New Zealand

The jury is still out on the effectiveness of natural products as a direct replacement for antibiotics but increasing evidence is building that they may have a place as adjunct therapies to make antibiotics work more effectively. They may also be effective at preventing simple infections from requiring antibiotics in the first instance (Su et al., 2020). Both mechanisms have the potential to buy us time in the fight against antibiotic resistance and superbugs in the hope that new highly effective drugs can be discovered.

Garlic Cultures across the world have long recognised garlic for its preventive and curative powers. Research has found that garlic exhibits antimicrobial activity against many forms of bacteria, including Salmonella and Escherichia coli. Garlic extract and its active component, allicin, have been shown to exert bacteriostatic effects on some vancomycin-resistant enterococci and an inhibitory synergism was observed when used in combination with vancomycin (Bayan et al., 2014).

Honey Since the time of Aristotle, honey has been used as an ointment to help wounds to heal and prevent or draw out infection. Honey is now widely used topically in healthcare for treating chronic wounds, burns, ulcers, bedsores, and skin grafts. The antibacterial effects of honey are usually attributed to its hydrogen peroxide content. Manuka honey fights off bacteria due to the presence of methylglyoxal although it has a lower hydrogen peroxide content. A 2011 review reported that Manuka honey is effective against approximately 60 kinds of bacteria including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA). Researchers are also beginning to take a closer look at the lesser known, Kanuka honey.

Culinary herbs and spices Many culinary herbs and spices have been traditionally used by many cultures around the world to prevent food spoilage and food poisoning.

These herbs and spices are now being investigated for use against human pathogens. Herbs under investigation with promising data

L & N News

include ginger, clove, oregano, thyme and rosemary. A recent excellent review covers the evidence to date on these herbs and spices and is well worth a read (Liu et al., 2017). Although synergies of bio-actives within these spices is highly likely, the volatile oils of these herbs are likely partially responsible for their antimicrobial properties. These oils have been shown to inhibit the ability of bacteria to form biofilms by disruption a mechanism called quorum sensing. Biofilm and quorum sensing disruption offers a promising therapeutic target for using natural bio-actives in combination with antibiotics (Cáceres et al., 2020).

Echinacea Native American and other traditional healers have used Echinacea for hundreds of years to treat infections and wounds. Although generally regarded as more of an immune regulating herb with primary efficacy for viral infections, a review from 2012, published in the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology reported evidence that extracts of Echinacea purpurea can kill many kinds of bacteria directly, including Streptococcus pyogenes. S. pyogenes is responsible for strep throat, toxic shock syndrome, and the “flesh-eating disease” known as necrotising fasciitis (Hudson, 2012). Echinacea may also act as an antiinflammatory associated with infection through interaction with the endocannabinoid system (Nagoor Meeran et al., 2021).

Berberine-containing herbs

joint diseases as a non-pharmacological therapy. Under alternative or adjuvant therapeutic schemes, the potential effects of honey, pollen, propolis and bee venom have been observed in humans and in in-vitro studies. These health benefits are mainly observed when using honeys from the southern hemisphere such as Manuka honey and stingless bee honey.

According to published data, different bioactive compounds commonly seen in honey have an effective role in decreasing intra-articular injuries by inhibiting inflammation, oxidative stress, synovial hyperplasia and angiogenesis.

References Bayan, L., Koulivand, P. H., & Gorji, A. (2014). Garlic: a review of potential therapeutic effects. Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine,4(1), 1–14. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25050296 Cáceres, M., Hidalgo, W., Stashenko, E., Torres, R., & Ortiz, C. (2020).

Essential Oils of Aromatic Plants with Antibacterial, Anti-Biofilm and Anti-Quorum Sensing Activities against Pathogenic Bacteria. Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland), 9(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics9040147 Hudson, J. B. (2012). Applications of the phytomedicine Echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower) in infectious diseases. Journal of Biomedicine & Biotechnology, 2012, 769896. https://doi. org/10.1155/2012/769896

Berberine is an alkaloid found in the endangered goldenseal but also other species that are much more sustainable sources such as Coptis chinensis. Berberine-containing herbs have traditionally been used as antimicrobials to treat infections of the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts. Berberine is being investigated in clinical trials for its beneficial effects on metabolic diseases such as diabetes and its antibacterial properties show bactericidal activity against multiple species of bacteria (Thawabteh et al., 2019).

Liu, Q., Meng, X., Li, Y., Zhao, C.-N., Tang, G.-Y., & Li, H.-B. (2017).

Antibacterial and Antifungal Activities of Spices. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 18(6), 1283. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms18061283

Risks of natural products

Nagoor Meeran, M. F., Javed, H., Sharma, C., Goyal, S. N., Kumar, S., Jha, N. K., & Ojha, S. (2021). Can Echinacea be a potential candidate to target immunity, inflammation, and infection - The trinity of coronavirus disease 2019. Heliyon, 7(2), e05990. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. heliyon.2021.e05990

Just because something is naturally derived, it is not necessarily 100% safe. As mentioned, natural products are yet to be an effective replacement for antibiotics and delaying medical treatment to try natural products first is not advised. Additionally, drug/herb interactions are possible so people should always check with a healthcare provider if they plan to take herbs or supplements.

Martinez-Armenta, C., Camacho-Rea, M. C., Martínez-Nava, G. A., Espinosa-Velázquez, R., Pineda, C., Gomez-Quiroz, L. E., & LópezReyes, A. (2021). Therapeutic Potential of Bioactive Compounds in Honey for Treating Osteoarthritis. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 12, 642836. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2021.642836

Medicinal Honey and Osteoarthritis

Su, T., Qiu, Y., Hua, X., Ye, B., Luo, H., Liu, D., Qu, P., & Qiu, Z. (2020).

Novel Opportunity to Reverse Antibiotic Resistance: To Explore Traditional Chinese Medicine With Potential Activity Against AntibioticsResistance Bacteria. Frontiers in Microbiology, 11, 610070. https://doi. org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.610070

A recently published review on the use of medicinal honey for osteoarthritis offers a potential, novel, future use of medicinal manuka honey beyond wound treatment (Martinez-Armenta et al., 2021) and is well worth a read for those with interests in honey or beehive products.

Thawabteh, A., Juma, S., Bader, M., Karaman, D., Scrano, L., Bufo, S. A., & Karaman, R. (2019). The Biological Activity of Natural Alkaloids against Herbivores, Cancerous Cells and Pathogens. Toxins,11(11). https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins11110656

The management of Osteoarthritis includes weight control and specific physical exercises as interventional strategies to support the pharmacological therapy. The first line of intervention includes nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and acetaminophen to control chronic pain. Cyclooxygenase-II inhibitors, intra-articular steroids and visco-supplementation are also considered when the standard treatment fails; nevertheless, their clinical efficacy is poor in patients with comorbidities. Therefore, the use of pain relief drugs neither represents a therapeutic strategy to halt or reverse cartilage damage, nor regulates cartilage homeostasis, making cartilage prone to further damage (Martinez-Armenta et al., 2021).

Nowadays, beehive products are used to manage different inflammatory

Mike Eyres, BSc. BNatMed Mike Eyres is a technical consultant, researcher and Registered Medical Herbalist and Naturopath (NZAMH) with 18 years professional experience in the food, beverage, and natural health industries. He was a co-author of a peer reviewed, scientific article in the journal “Nutrition Reviews” on coconut oil and cardiovascular risk factors. Consulting projects have covered herbal, food and nutraceutical products in various formats including gel caps, soft gels, sachets, bulk powders, tablets, and topicals. mike.eyres@gmail.com

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NZIFST

NZIFST AGM 2021 New President and Executive At the NZIFST AGM, Returning Officer, Rosemary Hancock, announced the results of elections for members of the NZIFST Executive. The previous term's Vice President has stepped into the Presidential role and a new Vice-President and two new Executive members were confirmed. Congratulations to all.

Our Executive members are: President: Phil Bremer Vice-President: Esraa El Shall Immediate Past President: Richard Archer Honorary Treasurer: Grant Boston Elected Executive Members Don Otter Colin Pitt Hamish Conway.

Brief bios of new Exec members follow.

Phil Bremer, new President Phil Bremer is a Professor in Food Science at Otago University. He is the chair of the Science Leadership team of the New Zealand Food Safety Science Research Centre and co-leads the Centre’s Consumer Insight Research Phil studied at Otago for his B.Sc. (microbiology & zoology), M.Sc. (marine science) and Ph.D. (microbiology) degrees, followed by post-doctoral appointments at the California State University-Long Beach, and the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University (Bozeman), both in the United States. The early part of his career was spent at the Crop&Food Seafood Research Unit in Nelson, before being seconded to the University of Otago in 1997. In 2001 he accepted a full-time permanent academic position at Otago. His research expertise is in food microbiology, safety, and product process development, specifically adding value to the exported market of the NZ sea-urchin, kina.

Phil is an avid under-water hockey player and a keen gardener, skills necessary when catching students and weeding out erroneous ideas from their minds. Phil's first Editorial for FoodNZ is on pg. 5.

NZIFST Directory EXECUTIVE MANAGER

Rosemary Hancock P O Box 5574, Terrace End, Palmerston North, 4441 Ph (06) 356 1686 Mob 021 217 8298 rosemary@nzifst.org.nz

PRESIDENT

Phil Bremer phil.bremer@otago.ac.nz

Esraa El Shall esraaelshall@gmail.com

TREASURER

Grant Boston grant@boston.net.nz

As a member of NZIFST you will benefit from Professional development programmes Networking at regular branch meetings, seminars and the Annual Conference

and gain Information through ‘Food New Zealand’, ‘Nibbles’ and our website Recognition through awards, scholarships and travel grants

JOIN NZIFST NOW! https://nzifst.org.nz/join-us

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Food New Zealand

NZIFST

Esraa El Shall, new Vice-President Esraa is Head of Innovation, Tip Top Ice Cream and has been an active and committed member of the NZIFST over the past 10 years.

She has taken varying roles, starting with the Auckland Branch as a Student Rep, then Branch Secretary, Vice Chair and Chair. While Vice-Chair and Chair she was Auckland Branch Representative on the Board and promoted a social media strategy for the Institute, so that we now have coordinated, active, national Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The social media work continued over the last two years whilst Esraa was an Elected Officer on Exec.

Phase two of the social media strategy will continue to build on the foundation work that has already been done and amplify our messaging by shining a spotlight on the work that the Branches and the Institute do as well as the people behind all the great work.

Esraa also has goals to increase the NZIFST’s visibility to students and graduates so we can keep and convert Student Members into Graduate Members and later into Standard Members.

Esraa recognises the important role NZIFST has had in her career and wants to make sure that all young professionals have the same opportunities as she had and will have the same passion for the future preservation of the NZIFST.

Elected Member of Executive: Hamish Conway Hamish has worked as a Food Technologist for almost his whole career and for the last 15 years he's been fortunate to work at Goodman Fielder, leading the R&D team for the last 8. This has given him great insight into the wide range of technical roles within a food company and the diversity of people filling these roles as well as the challenges that raises such as the recruitment, training and retaining of talent, building culture and teams and leading through change.

Food is such an important part of our lives and society and nearly every significant event involves food and drink which we harvest, make and deliver. Hamish is seeking to give back to my industry body, NZIFST, that's been there throughout his career.

Hamish believes that it is important that we continue to attract school students to study science and choose the wide range of food related degrees to ensure we continue to attract talented individuals.

If 2020 has taught us anything it is that we need to be ready as an Institute and as employers to cope with change and to do that we have to ensure that NZIFST is relevant to our members now and in the future.

Elected Member of Executive: Colin Pitt Colin Pitt's career spans thirtythree years in production, lab management and R&D at NZ Dairy Board and LIC followed by thirteen years with companies supplying into the Food and Beverage industry.

He was an advisory group member to the NZ Juice and Beverage Council 2012 - 2017.

Colin joined NZIFST in 2008 and was elected as Chair of the Waikato Branch in 2013.

Colin's energy, with support from other committed locals, ensured the continuing activity and health of the branch, which has more members derived from a wider catchment than just dairy and participation from WinTech and non-dairy industries. Colin handed over the role last year and for the future wants to maintain the momentum in the branch and the Institute by participating at board level and contributing to governance, policy development and member education and training. He will remain active at branch level helping with tours, mentoring and developing the new committee.

He has a personal goal to bring the University of Waikato Process Engineering group into the NZIFST fold and to introduce their students to the benefits of membership.

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NZIFST

NZIFST Awards Ably and wittily MC'd by Bob Olayo, the 2021 Awards Dinner was a celebration of members' achievements, and a celebration of the 2021 Conference 2 years is a long time to miss your peers.

Working for Walls Sausages in the UK during her OE cemented this experience where she undertook extensive microbiological work on pig nutrients. On returning home she joined Ocean Beach Freezing Company as microbiologist, setting up their lab and also developing further methodology. Whilst there she conducted an extensive marine water study for use in waste water legislation.

Re-joining Alliance, Margot was an important contributor to the work on creating new ways of delivering product to new markets driven by Britain joining the European Common Market and ceasing to be our major meat customer, more or less overnight. Her work on conditioning and ageing of lamb and preserving chilled meat cuts for export still underpins our export industry. The aging cycles she developed were audited by the Meat Industry Research Institute (MIRINZ) and became a standard for the industry.

Around the same time, she was also engaged in extensive sensory evaluation on tenderness expectations in our various markets, and flavours in meat due to animal feeds. A large project for Bernard Matthews (a major British importer of our meat) on tenderisation would nowadays have been a PhD thesis.

J C Andrews Award: Margot Buick This Award is presented annually in memory of Massey University’s first Chancellor, Dr Jack Clark Andrews, who proposed that a food technology degree course be established at Massey University.

The award recognises Institute members who have made a substantial contribution to science and technology in the food industry.

Margot is a fine example of a quiet achiever, in fact a pioneer, whose early career was engaged in ground-breaking work for our export meat industry – including developments which still underpin, for example, our chilled meat exports.

Her career began at the Alliance Freezing works – as a laboratory technician and the sole woman on site with 800 others in the late 1960s. There she built knowledge and experience in biochemical and microbiological testing supporting our meat export industry.

During this time Margot presented her work on salmonella in meat meal to the Meat Industry Conference.

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Food New Zealand

Our winner's talent for considered, effective business management was recognised and led her into senior roles which, again, achieved valuable improvements in management effectiveness and commercial success.

Her time at the Massey Food Science Research Centre as GM saw the centre growing its business portfolio and created a profitable, effective and commercially successful venture.

Latterly her management skills have supported a number of successful businesses at Board level beginning in 1993, with her first board appointment – to the Southport Board.

The NZIFST has been an important part of Margot's life and career, starting with Chairmanship of the Otago Southland Branch in the 1980s, and chairing the 1983 Queenstown Conference Committee.

She has been engaged, in at least 3 additional conferences. Margot was NZIFST President in 1994, Vice-President 1992,1993, Immediate Past-President, National Treasurer 2013, 2014, 2015 and she has been an elected member of NZIFST Executive. She was the second woman President and the first female MC at a Conference dinner (Christchurch, 2019). Not that she likes the limelight (far from it), but because she was determined to show women are just as effective leaders as men.

NZIFST

NZIFST Distinguished Service Award: Allan Main This year, our Distinguished Service Award goes to an avid leader and supporter of the Institute whose professional career showed equal commitment to his employers.

From his student days, under the tutelage of Dick and Mary Earle, and throughout his career, he has remained enthusiastic, engaged, focused, and always, always, paid attention to detail.

His career includes various senior positions in technical marketing with the New Zealand Dairy Board, similar roles overseas for the Dairy Board, transitioning through NZ Dairy Research to senior roles with Fonterra, then a busy time consulting, mostly on IP. For the last 4 years he has combined his consulting work with a role as a business manager for a Plant & Food Research.

At every stage along the highway of his career his depth of knowledge has been of particular value. He ran the Food Ingredients Business Unit of NZDB in the late 80s to early 90s and was instrumental in changing the focus away from commodity selling towards added value. New Zealand learned the value of Protection of Intellectual property (IP) "by fire" as the NZDB moved more intensively into adding value, early this century. Allan's expertise in this area was recognised when he became IP manager for Fonterra - where he instilled a culture of IP capture and protection with a significant number of new and exciting patents being published. (He is named on 3 of these) Since settling back in his home town, Allan has made a significant contribution to the Central Branch. He has organised many events and continues to be the Branch reporter, making timely contributions to Food New Zealand, describing branch events in minute detail. This man always brings passion to his commentaries with his brilliant ability to “paint a picture with words”.

He is also renowned for writing fiendishly difficult quiz questions for the Branch annual quiz night.

Fellows “The awarding of a fellowship by the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology recognises the outstanding contribution of individuals in areas such as: •

Research and development,

•

Technology transfer,

•

Development of the food industry including promotion of ethical standards and public image or

•

Development of the affairs of the Institute.

marketing and psychology and applying these to food industry-relevant questions.

She represents New Zealand on the committee of a 7-year APEC project to Reduce Food Losses and has provided expert opinion to 6 high-level policy-orientated events in APEC economies. In 2019, she was appointed as the Independent Expert Advisor to Parliament’s Environment Select Committee briefing, looking into ways to prevent the waste of food in New Zealand. Key recommendations from her report have since been accepted by the Government. At the community level, she has provided advice to Local Government, as well as to DCC Task Forces working on other food security and food initiatives.

Miranda strives for strong synergies between her teaching and other academic activities so that her government and community roles strongly support, rather than compete with her teaching priorities. This balance is hugely important for her teaching as it allows her to provide both research-led and community-engaged learning opportunities.

Richard Gray Richard has worked in the Food and Dairy industry for nearly 40 years.

He has strong personal and professional ethics and has mentored many young engineers as they started their careers.

His expertise and experience is in process engineering and project management with specialised knowledge in dairy related processes, including services and automation. His contribution to the development of dairy processing operations for the industry is significant.

During his career, he has held a wide range of senior positions for international companies, including Engineering Manager, Technical Development Manager, Senior Process Engineer, Business Unit Management and Senior Project Management locally and overseas.

While with Downer MDL, he was relocated to South America as General Manager to set up a subsidiary company in Buenos Aires. He was also seconded to Tetra Pak America for 3 years to support business development and Project Management in America.

He is a stalwart supporter of NZIFST. He significantly contributed to reforming of the Waikato Branch in 2006, chaired the branch for two years, and has been a committee member since then, other than while working overseas.

Miranda Mirosa Miranda is widely recognised for her extensive work advocating for the reduction of waste in food manufacturing and distribution while continuing her roles as a teacher and mentor in the academic field.

Her Consumer Food Science background is in agri-food marketing and consumer behaviour, engaging with knowledge from fields such as August/September 2021

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NZIFST Denver and his team have been determined to find out as much as they can about this evolving pathogen to continue to provide safe and suitable products for their consumers.

For more details, visit: www.mpi.govt.nz/significant-contribution-to-food-safety-award

Award for Significant Contribution to Food Safety Minister for Food Safety Dr Ayesha Verrall presented New Zealand Food Safety’s 2021 Significant Contribution to Food Safety Award to Denver McGregor (General Manager of Food Safety & Quality, New Zealand King Salmon Co. Ltd).

This was the fifth year that New Zealand Food Safety has sponsored the Significant Contribution to Food Safety Award. The Award recognises an individual, a team, or an organisation who/that has made a significant contribution to improving food safety in New Zealand.

Denver was the first in the New Zealand seafood industry to pioneer a Listeria Strategy Programme, to better understand Listeria monocytogenes and its occurrence within the New Zealand King Salmon manufacturing environment and find proven methods to control it.

This programme enables New Zealand King Salmon to accurately match a strain of Listeria back to the original source. The company is now able to use this technology and research findings to create methods to eliminate Listeria from the manufacturing environment.

Denver has been recognised for his commitment to maintaining a great food safety culture within New Zealand King Salmon, and his contributions to Listeria monocytogenes management in the field.

NZIFST Young Technologist: Lucy Yang Lucy is passionate about continually learning and working in the field of food science and technology. The area of product development of functional foods or products is of particular interest.

Since graduating Lucy has worked as Product Development Technologist for a company making supplements and supplementary foods, making significant contributions to over 100 projects, showing competencies in innovation and leadership. Many of these products have already been launched into several different markets both local and international, including China, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. She has also helped develop products for different categories such as sports, beauty, weight management and plant based/vegan.

She has recently begun working as a volunteer in low decile schools promoting food technology as an interesting and viable career.

Student Poster Competition

3 MINUTE Pitch

The winners in the Student Posters Competition, sponsored by Massey University: SFAT, Food Pilot, FEAST were left, Nilushika Thambugala, first, Jess Fitzgerald, second (not present) and right, Yiying Huang, third

Successful candidates in the University of Auckland 2 Minute Pitch competition were, left, Soundarya Karamcheti, first, and right, Patrick Tai, second

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Food New Zealand

NZIFST New Members NZIFST welcomes the following new members and welcomes and congratulates those who have joined or been upgraded to Professional Membership.

Welcome also to new student and Graduate members

Professional Membership Alejandra Acevedo-Fani

Research Officer

Riddet Institute

Craig Cooper

Quality & Operations Manager

Hawkins Watts Limited

Steve.Crockett

Managing Director

Caldic

Marie-Laure Delabre

Senior Food Technologist

Massey University

Evelyn Fraser

Self-employed

Neala Hart

Senior PD Technologist

Lourdes Santos

Zymus

Zhi Yang Yang

Lecturer

Massey University

Hanan Jamal Ahmed Al-Shawi

Food Safety and Quality Lead

Fonterra Brands NZ

Ronel Arnold

Auditor

SGS

Upneet Bhola

Senior Quality Coordinator - Infant Nutrition

The a2 Milk Company Limited

Wenting Chen

Innovation Project Manager

Tip Top Ice Cream Company Ltd

Stephen Clarke

Senior Dairy Scientist

Westland Milk Products

Rebecca Edgar

Senior Microbiologist

Callaghan Innovation

Katrina Fletcher

Senior Research Technologist

Plant & Food Research

June Foo

QA Manager

Rangiora Bakery Ltd.

Richard Guy

founder/director

driedfresh Ltd

Stephanie Harvey

Senior Fermentation Scientist

Callaghan Innovation

Ramy Hoshino

Compliance Specialist

The a2 Milk Company

Tat Chi Enoch Hui

Research Technologist

Fonterra

Scott Hutchings

Senior Scientist

AgResearch Limited

Felicia Indra

Technical & Compliance Manager

Cookie Time Limited

Rasika Kariyawasam

Shelf Life Food Scientist

Matt Solutions

Anushka Kiran

Quality Manager- Infant nutrition

The a2 Milk Company

Kirill Lagutin

Senior Research Scientist

Callaghan Innovation

Wan-Jing Lee

Shelf Life Food Scientist

Mätt Solutions

Yvette Lottering

Quality and Compliance Manager

ZIWI LTD

Graeme Macleod

"Head of Quality, Food Safety, and Compliance"

Farrahs

Charlotte Minson

Food Safety and Quality Internal Audit Manager

Fonterra

Doris Shen

Regulatory and Compliance Manager

The a2 Milk Company

Jane Stockton

Food Technologist

Self Employed

Josh Thorpe

Senior Process Engineer

DETA Consulting Limited

Lennox Vellekoop

Operations Manager

Dri-Trik Ingredients New Zealand Limited

Yiran Wang

Junior research officer

Riddet Institute

Jie Zheng

Customer Manager

Callaghan Innovation

Jacky Zhu

Bioprocess Engineer

Plant & Food Research

Food Technologist

Midlands Nutrition Ltd

Bryan Chang

Graduate

AUT

Caitlyn McFall

NPD Technologist

Icelandic Holdings Ltd

Ruixue Xu

Product Development & Process Coordinator

Hilton food

Frucor Suntory Ltd

Standard Membership

Graduate Year 2 Shijie Guo

Graduate Year 1

Student AUT: Belinda Dzikiti, Chen Liu,Daisy Read, Syeba Syeba. Lincoln University: Annu Mehta. Massey University: Noorul Faridatul Akmal, Kayden Elmsly, Pascale Hertnon, Yinxuan Hu, Doyul Ki, Julia Ling, Catherine Maidment, Linda Nezbedova, Zheng Pan, Danxia Shi, Eva Sunil, Sarah Thomson, Hien Truong, Salil Wagh, Sarah Wong, Mengxiao Yang. The University of Auckland: Geoff Ang, Srishti Bajaj, Patrick Chen, Xiao Chen, Cindy Huang, Celine Sheila Tiara, Boyang Xu. University of Otago: Hannah Browne, Anna Burnett, Courtney Johnston, Supriya Sally.

August/September 2021

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NZIFST

Branch Reports

At the Navigating Change event, Moderator, Esraa El Shall, centre, with, left to right, panellists Hayley Cassidy, BNZ Chief General Counsel, Jessica Mentis, AKA the Jellyologist, Alexandra Allan, CEO The FoodBowl and Kim Ballinger, CEO AsureQuality Kaitiaki Kai

Auckland Navigating Change Event On May 25, the Auckland Branch hosted a panel discussion entitled "Navigating Change". Now, more than ever, we live in an ever-changing world where the only constant is change. If we don’t evolve and adapt, we/our businesses would fall behind and quickly become irrelevant. It’s something we’ve all witnessed over the past 18 months with multiple lockdowns: businesses were forced to change their business models and quickly adapt to finding new methods to sell and communicate to their customers or else they perished!

Our panellists were four outstanding leaders who successfully navigate through change in their day to day roles. Our first panellist was Hayley Cassidy, BNZ Chief General Counsel. Hayley joined BNZ in 2019 and was appointed to the Executive Team in 2021. In her role, she leads the bank’s legal services, privacy, and data ethics teams to keep the bank safe and ensure customers can trust the use of their data. Hayley has extensive experience in governance, consultancy, and compliance. Her style of leadership is authentic and she shared some compelling advice in her introduction including “it doesn’t matter where you start from, what’s important is the connections that you make” – highlighting the importance of events like this and why networking is very valuable.

Our second panellist was Jessica Mentis, AKA the Jellyologist. Jess’s background is in architecture and design and she has turned jelly into a stable business. Jess’s advice was “go on a whim, say yes, jump two feet in and see where it takes you”, something that we can all benefit from at times, when we need to take a risk or do something outside our comfort zones.

Our third panellist was Alexandra Allan, CEO The FoodBowl. Alex is part of a growing focus on innovation to not only create added value export opportunities for the New Zealand economy, but for people from all walks of life to create products and businesses that reflect the diverse make-up of New Zealand. Alex emphasised the importance of 46

Food New Zealand

self care and believing in yourself in times of constant change, "it is hard to take care of others when you don’t take care of yourself".

Our fourth panellist was Kim Ballinger, CEO AsureQuality Kaitiaki Kai. Kim has held varying roles from technical to innovation, sales, marketing, and general management. She has a passion for developing people and creating strong inclusive teams: her focus is all about the people. She has learned that you should always ask yourself, “Can I add something? Can I learn something?” and that living in the moment and being present is important.

The panel discussion had so many great questions that created brilliant discussions between our panellists. On the topic of change coming from the top and the responsibility one has to lead by example, the panellists highlighted the importance of “being yourself ”, “wellbeing over productivity”, “meeting people where they are at” and touching on the imposter syndrome and how we all feel it/live it every day.

Discussions on overcoming challenges while remaining positive and keeping everyone around you engaged, included some great advice: “sometimes you need to learn to talk last” and the importance of having a small circle of people outside work that keep you real and ground you. We had a great question on making cultural change when the culture and the people are very set in their ways and we heard that change doesn’t happen by chance, you need a plan, you need a vision and you need to get people on board. “People don’t mind change but they worry about the transition” so focus on making the transition as clear and transparent as possible. A thought provoking question was asked about following your passion versus climbing the corporate ladder and our panellists highlighted the importance of being curious and experimenting and how “if you do what you love, you’ll be great at it” so don’t get fixated on finding your passion and climbing some invisible ladder, find something that you love and you will be great.

There were so many insightful questions asked by the audience and equally clearly articulated answers from our panellists, my favourite take away comments are:

NZIFST

Founder of Moustache Milk & Cookies, Deanna Yang, entertained and initiated Auckland Branch members into the trials of setting up your own business Left to right, Sarah Leakey, Jessica Chong, Grace van Tilborg and Allie Buczkowski at the Navigating Change event •

Navigating the No’s: we’re always knocked down by so many No’s but it’s important to recognise that it’s hard (don’t just toughen up), cry if you want to, give yourself the space to grieve then put things in perspective and think of the rubber duck – the duck will bounce back up and so will you! Find some small yes’s and always reach in.

•

When you turn up, you turn up. Turn up fully and authentically and be where your feet are.

•

The idea of diversity in delivering efficiency – Understanding how some people add more to a team than just output and looking at your own bias.

•

Be yourself, take care of yourself, be curious, experiment and jump in with both feet!

The event had a great turn out of members and non-members and who all found the evening inspirational!

Esraa El Shall

Moustache Cookies AGM Evening On a nippy Thursday evening on the June 10 Callaghan Innovation's Parnell office was filled with the amazing aroma of freshly baked cookies from the Moustache Milk & Cookies Bar company and its founder Deanna Yang. Some might speculate whether the offering of cookies might be a bribe to get willing members of the Auckland branch in for their Annual General Meeting but the committee is remaining coy.

Not to be outdone by the draw of her cookies, the official Chief Cookie Officer took to the podium, after another mercifully short Auckland branch AGM, to talk about her journey from a young inspiring journalist to a fully-fledged cookie kingpin.

Waking up to her mother’s early morning baking as a child earned the humble cookie an enduring place in her heart. The temptation proved too strong and at the age of 21 Deanna left her Journalism degree to follow her passion of sharing cookies with the world.

But as most intrepid business owners can tell you it wasn’t an easy journey. Deanna told us multiple solemn stories of battling: of being sidelined as an aspiring business owner thanks to what can be described as the trifecta of marginalisation. Being young, being female, and being Asian. Deanna talked about the grim reality of needing to ask her older brother to join meetings to get real estate agents and bankers to take her seriously. Other battles included greedy landlords demanding excessive rents and Cease and Desist letters over branding disputes with the big players.

But with those same battles came hard fought victories. In response to rising rents in her first store Deanna crowd-sourced funding for the now iconic Bedford Cookie Bus, which is slowly making its way down the length of the country. She has opened three stores in Orakei Bay Remuera, Christchurch’s CBD and most recently Manukau which will

Members at the Auckland Branch AGM, Marie Grandjonc and Dominic Lobo be supporting Moustache’s growing online orders. Most importantly, we have seen the development of cookie pies, which have to be tried to be believed!

Next up for Deanna and Moustache is bringing their cookies to the world, starting with Singapore.

The Auckland branch wishes Deanna all the best with her goals of world domination and want to thank her for her time (and cookies) at our AGM. A big thank you to Braden Loveridge and Callaghan for hosting the evening and sharing their amazing offices.

Nick Parker MNZIFST

Canterbury/Westland Food South presentation On June 29, sixteen members of the Canterbury-Westland branch attended an informative talk at Mätt Solutions presented by Tracey Sheehy, Business Development Lead at FoodSouth, on the role and resources of the NZ Food Innovation Network (NZFIN), in general, and FoodSouth, in particular, in assisting New Zealand food businesses.

NZFIN includes facilities in Auckland (FoodBowl), Hamilton (FoodWaikato), Palmerston North (FoodPilot) and Christchurch and Dunedin (both FoodSouth). The facilities are funded by Callaghan Innovation and have complementary ranges of food processing equipment.

NZFIN primarily assists ‘savvy entrepreneurs to multinationals’, rather than start-ups (other resources exist for these). The facilities allow food companies to build capability in new product development (NPD) without the immediate risks of capital investment or needing to interrupt their own production.

FoodSouth has three main processing rooms; spray drying, beverage processing and extrusion and separation. A spiral flash dryer will be the next addition to FoodSouth’s offering.

As well as providing access to physical resources, FoodSouth is August/September 2021

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Winna Harvey, fifth from left, with branch members at the farewell event celebrating her long period of service to NZIFST at the local and national level. Winna was President of NZIFST 2001-2002 and a long-standing member of the Canterbury Branch committee experienced in guiding clients through available business support and information resources.

More information can be found online for NZFIN and FoodSouth: https://foodinnovationnetwork.co.nz/ https://foodinnovationnetwork.co.nz/locations/foodsouth

save you the headache and heartache of border rejections.

We hosted around 15 people in-person, and an equal number joined this event online – we welcome all members to our online events so keep an eye on the NZIFST website, Facebook and LinkedIn pages for future events.

Charlotte Sullivan

Peter Cressey

Export Recall and Non-Conformance

Hawke's Bay/Tairāwhiti In May a small group from the branch were able to get a behind-thescenes tour of local Hastings business, Good Vibes Fungi. Owner, with his wife, Kimi, Zane Oosthuizen shared with the group how they organically grow oyster and shiitake mushrooms using waste products from local businesses as substrate. These quality mushrooms can be found on the plates of many Hawke's Bay dining establishments and 'Mini Mushroom Farms' can also be purchased for people to grow their own mushrooms from a box at home. Members then sampled some craft beer at Brave Brewery in Hastings.

Andrew McKay, Canterbury Circuit Leader, Verification Services, Ministry for Primary Industries, speaks to Canterbury/Westland branch members

In June the branch held its AGM with a fascinating presentation from Kirin Harrison on how Simply Squeezed embarked on waste utilisation projects using expertise and grants from Callaghan Innovation and have developed a new line of products, including a range of natural New Zealand flavours, with Sensient Technologies.

Here’s the big message – get it right in New Zealand before shipping your products!

On a chilly Christchurch evening, we welcomed Andrew McKay from MPI to Mätt Solutions (thank you Mätt team!) to share insights and advice for businesses to help avoid an export non-conformance, or worse, a recall.

The majority of non-conformances are not product related, but are usually concerning labelling errors, testing requirements and changing shipping arrangements. Nevertheless any non-conformance can cost both time and money – and that’s not all. Non-conformances and recalls damage the reputation of the company involved, subject it to closer scrutiny in future, may risk its future market access, and are not a good look for New Zealand as a whole.

Andrew’s advice to budding exporters includes – make use of the information on the MPI website, connect with the Exporter Regulatory Advisory Service (ERAS), and work with an experienced importer in your destination country. And most of all, develop your systems to ensure that you get it right before your product leaves home – that’ll 48

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Zane Oosthuizen, left, from Good Vibes Fungi briefs branch members on their operation

NZIFST

Central Central Branch Committee elected At the Branch AGM held 27 May at video-linked venues in Wellington and Palmerston North a new Branch Committee was elected for 202122. Our new committee is: Chair: Ben Sutherland Vice Chair: Craig Honoré Secretary: Amanda Nottage

Abby Thompson, CEO of FoodHQ, spoke to Central Branch about a newly released report, Emerging Proteins in Aotearoa.

Correspondent: Allan Main Committee Members: Martia Alico, Richard Archer, Grant Boston, Clare Chandler, Kallpanna Gunasakaran (Student Rep), Graeme MacLeod, Kate Manunui (Student Rep), Lara Matia-Merino, Daniel Palfreyman, John van den Beuken, Pavinee Watson.

Thank you one and all for volunteering your time to make the Central Branch of NZIFST a welcoming and interesting professional community.

Emerging proteins in New Zealand After the formalities of the Branch AGM the assembled members enjoyed a presentation by Abby Thompson, CEO of FoodHQ, talking about a newly released report Emerging Proteins in Aotearoa.

FoodHQ is based on the science campus adjacent to Massey University Palmerston North campus and enables a collaboration of almost all our national food innovation capacity. FoodHQ works to integrate activities in future-focused topics that the New Zealand Food Industry requires to transition into our changing future. One such initiative is to provide leadership in the matter of emerging proteins and particularly plantbased proteins.

While New Zealand’s economy has a heavy reliance on food proteins from animal farming (dairy and meat) local production of other food proteins is a gap in our food industry. To that end Abby and FoodHQ colleague, Amos Palfreyman, have prepared an analysis of how New Zealand could play in the burgeoning international emerging proteins market. The report is available for download on the FoodHQ website and provides the culmination of six months’ discussions with 185 people engaged in a diverse range of non-traditional food protein products.

Initially Abby framed the context to her presentation by exhibiting the rapid rise in plant-protein-based foods, advising that what started as niche and even fringe food offerings are now on course to providing 11% of the global protein foods market by 2035. This is driven not by an overwhelming shift to vegetarianism and veganism but by a far subtler transition of people diversifying their diets to a lesser reliance on meat and dairy consumption.

The trend from daily meat consumption to occasional meat meals is causing the explosion in demand. Hence the target consumer is not the dietary extremist but the mainstream consumer heeding signals from sources ranging from medical health practitioners to animal ethicists and global sustainability experts. An interesting consequence of targeting the mainstream consumer is that the demand is not for high-protein plant primary produce in its original form, but growth in compounded plant-based foods that mimic the traditional animal protein food, such as burgers and milk substitutes.

Abby stressed that for New Zealand, emerging proteins will be an “and” story alongside our traditional farming activities, although these will of necessity be reigned in to provide a lighter impact on our environment.

Currently there is no domestic production of plant protein ingredients

so local engagement in emerging protein products is founded on imported plant protein commodity staples. New Zealand will need to be selective in any move to found a domestic plant protein commodity, or ingredient, by aligning the crop source with New Zealand’s natural and competitive advantages.

Abby’s presentation provided a thought-provoking teaser to the report, which interested members are encouraged to download from the FoodHQ website.

Successful national conference hosted In early July Central Branch members were delighted to host the 2021 NZIFST National Conference on our patch in Palmerston North.

With the 2020 NZIFST conference being sacrificed on the altar of the international IUFoST 2020 event – one more example of Covid-collateral – this conference was eagerly anticipated. There can be no doubt that from any perspective this NZIFST conference was one of the best.

Congratulations to Conference Chair, Don Otter and his band of predominantly Central Branch members for their dedication in presenting such a powerful event.

Allan Main, FNZIFST

Who’s gone where?

NZIFST members who are changing jobs, moving overseas, starting their own businesses...

Wanda Whitton-Esteve has joined Telarc Limited in the role of Technical Manager - Food & Wine. Wanda was previously Product Development Manager for Inghams Enterprises.

Andrew Hudson, formerly of ESR, Christchurch, has a new job in the UK as a risk assessor in the Food Standards Agency, still based in York.

Paulette Elliot starts a new job at KPMG on 16 August as Manager Private Enterprise – Propagate.

Owen Young has "hung up his guns" after 18 years at AUT University. Rosemary Hancock has Owen's new email address if you want to keep in touch

August/September 2021

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Student Essay

Is it high time the New Zealand beverage industry changed?

Bianca Kirk, Student, Massey University Palmerston North This article was awarded first prize in the Food Tech Solutions NZIFST Undergraduate Writing Competition 2021. The annual competition is open to undergraduate food science and food technology students who are invited to write on any technical subject or latest development in the food science and technology field that may be important to the consumer.

In the New Zealand 2020 referendum, a narrow majority of voters voted against the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill. As a result, prescribed medicinal cannabis and hemp both remain legal while any recreational cannabis remains prohibited. Although New Zealand is not yet ready for cannabis-infused foods and beverages, products in these categories are well established in many countries worldwide. This prompts the question: how would the legalisation of recreational cannabis affect the New Zealand beverage industry?

Cannabis legalisation and beverage trends elsewhere in the world can be used to give some indication of what could happen in New Zealand.

In recent years, several countries have changed their legislation surrounding cannabis, enabling the manufacture of cannabis-infused foods and beverages. The market for cannabis-infused beverages is particularly prominent in Canada and the United States: Mintel hold product records for cannabis-infused waters, seltzers, sodas, and teas that can be purchased from legal, cannabis retail stores. At present, these products are alcohol-free and commonly sold in single serve cans covered with vibrant, luxurious designs. Concentrates are also available in small bottles for the consumer to add ad libitum to their own beverages.

Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis are the three different species of cannabis, alternatively considered to be subspecies of Cannabis sativa. Within the cannabis plant, there are two compounds of interest for the cannabis beverage industry. The first is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), a precursor to delta-9tetrahydrocannabinol more commonly known as THC. The second is cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) which is a precursor to cannabidiol, referred to as CBD. THC and CBD are the active compounds included in cannabis beverages and can be extracted from THCA and CBDA under the application of heat.

Active THC is psychotropic and produces a psychoactive substance known as 11-hydroxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (11-OH-THC) when metabolised. CBD is not psychoactive and is, more generally, claimed to have calming effects. Cannabis-infused beverages contain either CBD or THC, or a combination of both, and the plant species from which the compounds were derived is usually stated. The expected psychological and physiological effects of each beverage are usually stated on the packaging, relative to the dosages of THC and CBD and the plant species they originated from.

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Extraction of THC and CBC THC and CBD molecules are lipophilic, hence are not soluble in water.

Cannabis-infused beverages are oil-in-water emulsions, in which a discontinuous oil phase of THC and CBD molecules is dispersed in a continuous water phase. To create a stable, homogeneous beverage in which the THC and CBD molecules are evenly dispersed throughout, a wide range of processing technologies can be adopted. Tweed, a Canadian cannabis producer, manufacture a variety of cannabisinfused beverages. The first step in their manufacturing process involves converting raw cannabis materials into cannabis extracts using carbon dioxide (CO2) extraction. This involves combining raw materials with compressed aqueous carbon dioxide, then subjecting this mixture to a high temperature and pressure. This returns the CO2 to a gaseous state and a concentrated cannabis extract remains. This extract is then refined to a cannabis distillate via short-path distillation, which involves processing the extract under vacuum and heat. Finally, the distillate is combined with the remaining ingredients and the mixture is emulsified. This typically involves a homogenization step to reduce the size of oil droplets via high pressure, followed by the addition of surface-active ingredients; sucrose esters, polysorbate80, monoglycerides, soy lecithin, and sunflower lecithin are commonly included. These molecules adsorb at the oil-water droplet interface, which reduces the surface tension and prevents the oil droplets from joining together via coalescence.

Legal considerations If cannabis-infused products were legalised in the future, New Zealand would need to introduce legislation via Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) to regulate and control the manufacture and distribution of such products. In the United States, legalities surrounding cannabis-infused beverages remain ambiguous. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outline it is illegal to sell and market food to which THC or CBD has been added and do not consider THC or CBD to be dietary supplements. However, many states have gone against this and passed their own laws allowing the manufacture and distribution of foods and beverages containing THC and CBD. Adults aged 21 years and older are able to purchase such products in legal cannabis dispensaries. The dosage limitations in cannabis-infused

Student Essay

CBD-infused cold brew coffee and tea at a grocery story in Los Angeles, California. Image: Wikimedia Commons beverages vary between states; generally, THC is limited to 5 or 10 milligrams per serve, while CBD dosages appear to be unrestricted.

In Canada, cannabis beverages can be purchased from legal cannabis retail stores by adults aged 18+, 19+, or 21+ depending on provincial laws. Beverages must be in plain packaging and contain a maximum of 10 mg of THC per package; there are no restrictions on CBD dosages.

At present, THC and CBD infused alcoholic beverages are not in the cannabis beverage markets due to legal restrictions. Such products may be introduced to the market when the political environment changes overseas; a move anticipated by large companies such as Constellation Brands, an American alcoholic beverage company.

In May 2020, Constellation Brands invested further in the cannabis company, Canopy Growth Corporation, resulting in 38.6% ownership of the cannabis business. The Constellation Brands CEO and director, Bill Newlands, expressed his belief that considerable opportunities in the cannabis industry will present themselves in the long run and implied the investment would enable access to the American and Canadian cannabis-infused beverage markets. Canopy Growth have since released CBD infused beverages in these two markets: the foundation these companies have built for cannabis-infused alcoholic beverage production appears to be well established.

If New Zealand follows in the footsteps of other countries and legalises recreational cannabis in the near future, entrepreneurs and existing food manufacturers could be given the opportunity to develop cannabis-infused foods and beverages. In the meantime, Canada and

the United States will continue to market products and technologies in this realm.

References Barry, R. A., & Glantz, S. A. (2018). Marijuana Regulatory Frameworks in Four US States: An Analysis Against a Public Health Standard.

American Journal of Public Health, 108(7), 914-923. https://doi. org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304401 Cannabis Act, SC 2018, c. 16. https://canlii.ca/t/543mn Constellation Brands, Inc. (2020). Constellation Brands exercises warrants to acquire shares in Canopy Growth, reinforcing confidence in Canopy Growth’s ability to win long-term in emerging cannabis industry. Constellation Brands. https://www.cbrands.com/news/ articles/constellation-brands-exercises-warrants-to-acquire-shares-incanopy-growth-reinforcing-confidence-in-canopy-growths-ability-towin-long-term-in-emerging-cannabis-industry Dabrowska, A., Green, V., Johnson, R., & Sacco, L. (2020). FDA Regulation of Cannabidiol (CBD) Consumer Products: Overview and Considerations for Congress. Congressional Research Service. https:// crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46189 Finn, K. (2020). Cannabis in Medicine: An Evidence-Based Approach.

Springer International Publishing. https://books.google.co.nz/ books?id=UlvwDwAAQBAJ Tweed. (2020). Ultimate guide to: cannabis drinks. Tweed. https:// www.tweed.com/en/vault/articles/ultimate-guide-to-cannabis-drinks August/September 2021

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NZIFST CONFERENCE 2022 July 5th to 7th, 2022 Distinction Hotel, Rotorua Your suggestions for topics of interested are welcome Conference Committee Chair is Rob Archibald

An event worth attending, for the science and technology, and for the people For more information contact NZIFST, rosemary@nzifst.org.nz

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