Developing Ingredients of the Future - Danisco
Danisco is one of the most successful ingredient companies in the world and one of the largest companies in the Øresund region. The key to success at Danisco appears to be a dynamic organization with an organic growth adjusting to the environment. The company has gone through a rapid development during the recent years, focusing even more on research and development. A focus that has resulted in many new products. To get Daniscos view on the recent development at the company and in the ingredient industry as a whole, Øresund Food Network met up with Leif Kjærgaard, Chief Technology Officer for Technology and Business Development at Danisco.
- There has been an outstanding development at Danisco the last couple of years, within product development, growing sales and more. I cannot point at one or another as more important but I can say that the whole organization has moved forward, says Leif Kjærgaard.
Danisco is in the frontier of manufacturing high-tech ingredients to the food industry. The company is marketing their business with four different focus areas: Innovation, Health & Nutrition, Food Protection and Industrial Biotech Solutions. The interview with Leif Kjærgaard focuses mainly on the Health & Nutrition area.
- It's a general trend all over the world that leads toward food with more health beneficial qualities. The trend has been going on for some years and as the demand from our costumers is changing, we have to change too. The demand for functional ingredients with health benefits is increasing in Europe, Japan and USA. For Danisco every market is of interest, but of course, a larger market is always of greater interest, says Leif Kjærgaard.
During the last years healthy food has gone from low-fat to more advanced products with wider health promoting effects. As you enter supermarkets today you may see products with health claims and products that state the positive effect on your wellbeing.
- Food products turn into more advanced products with special focus on lifestyle and disease related issues. There will be many new products arriving in the future. I believe there will be a great development within all areas that have health beneficial qualities on humans. Weight management, gut health and oral health. There are many areas where I foresee great development. This will be a very important area in the future. I'm sure of that, Leif Kjærgaard states.
In the supermarket jungle the consumer may have a difficult task in finding the right product with reliable health benefits. For example many people do not know the health benefits of whole grain, and even less know the difference between probiotics and prebiotics. Not all products that state that they are healthy have gone through clinical testing and today's legislation is diffuse and differs very much between countries. But help is on its way from the EU.
- As long as it will be a good consistent legislation from the EU about health claims on food, and as long as the food industry adapts to the new laws it will be easy to get a clear view of who is serious and who is not. But if it's too difficult to adjust to the legislation the industry will ignore it, but I don't think that will be the case. In the Danisco case this is no problem because we are "a business to business" company that produce ingredients and our customers are the food industry who has extensive knowledge about our products, what they want and what we offer, says Leif Kjærgaard.
To develop a business in a global economy and in a very knowledge intense industry with focus on research, innovation and product development a company has to look beyond their home town. Danisco is present in 46 countries in the world and collaborate with both customers and universities.
- There is nothing specific that controls the research and product development in Danisco. It's everything from a request from or cooperation with our customers to own initiatives from our research teams. Danisco is also collaborating with universities all over the world, says Leif Kjærgaard.
The view of Danisco as a company developing towards a legible health profile has been emphasized during the interview with Leif Kjærgaard. Dansico is leading the way with developing functional ingredients with health benefits, not only in the Øresund region, but all over the world. Leif Kjærgaard also believes that more companies will move in this direction.
