Chr. Hansen and CP Kelco bring their ambient vegan yogurt alternative to the market through a collaboration that underscores the innovation and expertise of the businesses. Company executives unveil how they worked on a plant-based yogurt product that is shelf-stable, nutritional, reduces food waste and is scalable without running into supply chain trouble.

FoodIngredientsFirst spoke to Christian Gilleladen, principal application scientist at Chr. Hansen and Anne Sinha, marketing director at CP Kelco, on the show floor of Fi Europe 2022 (FiE) about this latest innovation and what might be in the pipeline in the future.

“This exciting collaboration started over a year ago when we got together and decided we wanted to develop a good range of products with an innovative concept focused on plant-based ambient-type yogurts that didn’t exist on the market. So really putting two companies, experts in their field, and to collaborate, CP Kelco with our stabilizers and Chr. Hansen, with their cultures fermentation process, and try to develop the best products that we could put in front of customers,” Sinha explains. 

“The end product includes different plant proteins, different protein contents and different textures,” she adds.

Gilleladen notes how the plant-based world is experiencing a “huge evolution,” which brought his company to seek this partnership. 

“But there is also a high level of uncertainty technically and commercially, and what we realize is that we need to team up to share our know-how, experiences and deep knowledge,” adds Gilleladen.

“We can speed up the innovation process and definitely we can improve the quality of the final result by teaming up and bringing products to the market quicker.” 

Choice of ingredients
The companies have opted for oat, soy, pea, coconut and almond bases to build vegurts alternative yogurts, which come in drinkable and spoonable versions.

Christian Gilleladen, principal application scientist at Chr. Hansen and Anne Sinha, marketing director at CP Kelco."The choice of raw commodities is a combination of what is available on a large scale with a great taste, or something that we can turn into a great tasting product by fermenting it,” explains Gilleladen.

Gilleladen notes that the more protein added, the more of a challenge it is to reduce some of the well-known off-flavors and notes. 

Overcoming challenges 
Formulation of plant-based vegurts is not straightforward and Sinha dives into how CP Kelco leveraged its stabilizers. 

“We are building on the developments that took place years ago, contributing to the dairy ambient market in China and Asia. We started at that point with how to stabilize the protein in an acidic medium that was then going through a heating process,” she continues. 

“So here, we see the evolution, the movement from dairy proteins to plant-based. It was interesting as well to try to understand how the protein of the plant-based differs in terms of functionality and in terms of reaction as well. We needed to look into mastering how the proteins differed and even between the different sources.” 

“We built on our expertise and came up with this type of stabilization of the products. We worked extensively on it, and at the end of the day, we reached good stability with good protein content, good nutritional level and, of course, partnering with Chr. Hansen, who supported us.” 

Gilleladen dives deeper into why oat, soy, pea, coconut and almond bases were seleced for formulation. 

“If we want to have this revolution going on to become a reality in the marketplace and have this transition to the most sustainable foods then they have to taste great. Not just taste great, but we need to have raw materials that are produced on a large scale so we have the right price point and the supply chain has to be there. So it’s a combination, having something that we can turn into a great tasting product by fermenting it and having the raw materials on a large scale,” he explains. 

“We have made a dairy alternative yogurt with different textures. What we found to be the best matches was oat, soy, pea, coconut and almond and then we have some raw materials that add nutritional values and offer functionality in terms of texture and then some raw materials that will connect base note flavors to the consumer so that they will be very attractive,” he adds.

Expanding shelf life

Combining shelf stability with taste and nutrition is key in this kind of development, so what challenges do vegurts help overcome?

“The more legumes and the more proteins typically from the concentrated plant-based material we are applying to these products, the more of a challenge it is to reduce some of the well-known off-flavors and notes of the plant material. This is indeed a challenge. However, based on positive feedback, we know that we have overcome this to provide a great taste and texture.”

“We wanted to show that we can come up with different textures from drinkable to thin mouthfeel all the way to spoonable,” adds Sinha. “An additional concept that we are pushing is the idea of having an ambient product, because we do see then trend toward greater sustainability and this includes less waste and we do see plant-based being taken more to that level of being an ambient product which adds convenience as well.”

Removing dairy from the equation allows for interesting innovation in the shelf life duration of plant-based products, outlasting its traditional yogurts counterparts.

“An additional concept I think we are pushing here is the idea of adding an ambient product because we see a good trend toward more sustainability. And more sustainability means fewer instances of food waste,” explains Sinha.

“And we do see that plant-based can be taken to that level of being more toward ambient types of products that add to convenience as well,” she continues.

Another advantage of longer shelf life products is that they can increase the geographical reach of companies.

Value centered food
CP Kelco and Chr. Hansen believe they are addressing general plant-based industry trends with the new vegurts. 

CP Kelco, FiE stand.“With our yogurt concept, we are bringing value to our customers, really showing them that they can develop products that will bring something additional to their customers, that will be nutritional, more convenient to take around and reduce waste as well,” says Sinha.

Innova Market Insights recently crowned “Plant-based: Unlocking a New Narrative” as a Top Trend for 2023. The rapid rise of the plant-based sector has, almost inevitably, hit some roadblocks, necessitating a refocus on consumer demands for high-quality, flavorful products that support planetary health.

Vegurt customization
The prototype recipes can be tweaked to meet specific requirements for sugar, protein, fat, texture and flavor, thanks to the knowledge in fermentation, stabilization, flavor, processing and packaging offered by the collaboration.

“The customers will decide which materials they want to work with. I think through this project, what we wanted to do is build knowledge around how these different proteins are reacting so that when a customer comes with a project we will be able to help them with agility to address their product developments and support them best,” says Sinha.