Improving sustainability in the food chain is all about finding smart ways to make more of the available resources without storing up environmental problems for the future. That's also a pretty accurate summary of why food manufacturers are increasingly turning to enzymes for help at a time when concerns about climate change and saving cash dominate people's minds.
Enzymes can act as processing aids in food production operations throughout the supply chain, from extracting extra fruit juice from pulp to extending the shelf-life of baked goods. Along the way these protein-based catalysts can boost yields, reduce energy and water consumption and improve the quality of the end product. And while some foods have always been produced using enzymes cheese is the obvious example the enormous benefits from more recent developments in enzymes mean sustainability is set to be the next big reason to use them.
"We believe enzymes offer a great opportunity to be sustainable," says Frederika Kruythoff, global sales director of DSM Food Specialities. "Enzymes growth over and above the growth in the general food market is driven chiefly by functionality and cost reductions at the moment. But we're expecting sustainability to result in big growth from the beginning of next year."
In fact, DSM is so confident in sustainability as a key driver that it recently committed itself to 80% of any future DSM innovations having a positive impact on the environment, and 50% of future net sales coming from these "eco-plus" products by 2015.
Other observers are also confident about forecasting strong growth in enzymes. According to a recent report from Frost & Sullivan, a sustained compound annual growth rate of 3.1% in value will add up to European growth in food enzymes of 25% between 2009 and 2016.
"Enzymes improve the process economics and help food manufacturers become more environmentally friendly," says the report's author, Dr Kaushik Ramakrishnan Shankar. "This fits with a customer megatrend where consumers are more sensitive to sustainability. If manufacturers can claim a lower carbon footprint it will be a significant market advantage. Natural is another megatrend and enzymes also bring in the natural tag."
Consumers certainly say they want more sustainable food products. Novozymes surveyed 1,400 European consumers last year and asked them whether they would consider sustainability when deciding which bread to buy. Over half of the respondents said they would, with 41% saying "yes probably" and 14% saying "yes definitely". In the UK, Allied Bakeries was the first industrial bakery to use sustainability for product differentiation when it added the carbon footprint to its Kingsmill brand packaging in July 2009. Bakery and dairy are currently the two largest sectors for food enzymes in Europe, with brewing, fruit juice and vegetable oil also important.
European bakers are already seeing major benefits from amylase-based enzyme solutions that are enabling them to extend the shelf-life of their products. This can have a knock on effect on sustainability in a variety of arenas, from the logistics of less frequent deliveries to waste reduction among end users.
"It depends on the specific lines but our PowerFresh system extends the shelf-life of baked goods from 10 to 14 days," says Aart Mateboer, business unit director for food enzymes at Danisco.
Novamyl from Novozymes is another good example of a sustainable enzyme in action. According to regional marketing manager Pål Ladsten, a bakery producing 10,000t a week could cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 10,000t each year by using Novamyl in just 60% of its products. "Under European conditions, the use of Novamyl can enable industrial bakeries to halve the ratio of stale bread wasted, resulting in a 5% reduction in GHG emissions over the life cycle of the product from cradle to grave," he says. "When less bread is discarded by consumers, the industry needs to produce less to satisfy a certain consumption level, which means using less of everything, including flour, water and energy. This is the proposition of most enzymes in baking."
Enzymes can also help manufacturers replace additives or processing aids derived from more conventional, chemical sources that are often less sustainable, either in their production or in use. "It's partly because enzymes are very efficient," explains Ladsten. "As an example, just 1kg of lipase can replace between 100 and 1,000kg of traditional baking emulsifiers, so you've got transport and everything else to take into consideration." For instance, DSM's Panamore enzyme-based emulsification technology is effective at dosages 150 times lower than conventional emulsifiers. In use, this equates to an 80% lower carbon footprint than the emulsifiers it replaces, equivalent to a 1% reduction in carbon emissions from the baking process overall.
The ability of enzymes to change the production process for the better is another advantage in a wide variety of food manufacturing operations. For instance, GoldCrust from Novozymes reduces the bake-off time for par- and pre-baked baguettes from 24 minutes to 16 minutes.
In brewing, DSM's Brewers Clarex system shortens the beer stabilisation process, reducing the need to chill beer to sub-zero temperatures during the cold stabilisation stage. DSM research shows breweries can reduce their overall manufacturing carbon footprint by 5-8% as a result. And in dairy, adding Cleanline from Danisco to raw milk causes changes in surface tension that prevent the build-up of deposits in UHT equipment, reducing the frequency of cleaning operations. Clear surfaces also promote more efficient heat transfer. These are important applications that can deliver big savings. However, some enzyme-based systems actually promise to make more food from the same raw materials, which is arguably even more exciting from a sustainability perspective.
"Enzymes facilitate more efficient use of raw materials," says Mateboer. "For example, in brewing, our solutions can help produce up to 10% more beer from the same raw materials."
Danisco highlights vegetable oil processing, where a modest-sounding 1% increase in yields obtained with enzymatic systems equates to enormous benefits when scaled up to industrial production levels.
There are even substantial gains to be made in cheese making, where enzymes have been used for thousands of years. Chr Hansen, which specialises in dairy applications, partnered up with Novozymes to develop new enzymes like YieldMAX, which results in an approximate 2% yield increase. "Each tonne of mozzarella made with YieldMAX saves 225kg of carbon dioxide. If all mozzarella-type cheeses were made with YieldMAX this would result in approximately 0.6Mt saved, which is the annual carbon load of 150,000 cars," says marketing director David Stroo.
YieldMAX is a great example of how the action of enzymes can be difficult to predict and understand compared with conventional chemical processing aids. "It took us some time after we found the yield effect to find out how it works. We just saw that we got more cheese from the same milk," he says.
The answer turned out to be that the phospholipase enzyme in YieldMAX affects the emulsification of the fat in the milk, so more fat is retained in the cheese. "You get smaller fat globules so that binds more components into the curd structure," says Stroo. Chr Hansen is now testing the enzyme in other applications where emulsification is important. For example, it looks like it may be able to combat syneresis in dairy products like cream cheese and thus prevent the formation of a watery top layer. "Syneresis appears to be dramatically reduced with YieldMax," he says.
Of course, sustainability is not the only thing driving developments in food enzymes. For example, both Novozymes and DSM are promoting enzyme solutions that prevent the formation of acrylamide in foods, while Chr Hansen's partnership with Novozymes has produced a lactose oxidase that upgrades the low-value lactose in the waste stream from cheese production into high-value lactobionic acid, which is used in everything from the shipment of transplant organs to face creams.
Nevertheless, sustainability is a key megatrend in which enzymes will undoubtedly play a big role. "At the moment we're only touching the tip of the iceberg. Enzymes will be at the forefront of the drive for sustainability in the food chain," says Mateboer.