Meet Epi Ingredients at FIE 2022

How can we rethink food products and adapt them to the world we live in?

The French dairy ingredients supplier Epi Ingredients continues to support food manufacturers in their search for solutions in line with current consumer trends and expectations. To this end, at FI Europe 2022, the company will be presenting two new products that comply with both the naturalness and ‘on-the-go’ criteria of the market at Booth A183 in Hall 4. FIE visitors will be able to get an idea of the considerable potential of these innovations designed to be used as ingredients or toppings in a wide range of delicious applications such as yogurt drinks, filled cookies, ice creams or frozen yogurt, or sports bars and shakers.

These products are also the perfect illustration of the Laïta Group's CSR approach initiated in 2015, Passion du Lait. As can be seen here, innovations are designed in response to societal expectations, to be useful and open to the world.

1) Launch of an organic yogurt powder Epi Ingredients, a specialist in the production of natural yogurt powders, is using its expertise to create a new signature product: an organic yogurt powder. The sensitivity of consumers to the quality of food products and the goal to eat better and healthier is expressed through the tremendous growth of the organic market in the last decade. Despite a recent downturn, France's organic sector has doubled in five years and is one of the leading producers and markets in Europe.

To accompany the food industry in this market, EPI has made considerable efforts in terms of sourcing (raw materials and suppliers) and obtaining certification for its production facilities to meet the strict requirements of organic specifications.

The result? A full range of premium organic fermented powder, perfectly adapted to the development of products, offering functional, nutritional, and organoleptic benefits, without refrigeration constraints.

Its advantages:

• Natural yogurt taste: Epi Ingredients makes yogurt and then dries it, unlike a more acidic milk powder. It is easy to implement and can be incorporated into a wide range of food matrixes, thus providing strong yet distinctive dairy flavors and natural acidity to the finished product.

• Controls fermentation to obtain active or inactive flora.

• Quality: Epi Ingredients can adapt formulations to comply with local regulations. Our powders are manufactured using industrial machinery that produces infant powder, thus providing a very high level of hygiene which makes them suitable for infant nutritional products.

• Usefulness: few proposals on the market for organic yogurt powder.

• Wide range of applications: Ice cream, Beverages, Infant Nutrition, Adult Nutrition, Bakery.

2) Sports nutrition & innovative processes: launch of an extruded calcium caseinate powder, the ideal casein source for the development of high-protein bars.

Epi Ingredients is making significant investments in R&D to offer manufacturers a solution that radically changes the result of their product applications in the sports nutrition market.

Indeed, the use of Epi Ingredient's calcium caseinate supports the production of protein bars that are more flexible, less crumbly, and with a longer shelf life, preventing the hardening process. For the same type of protein, the powder can have different properties depending on its drying technique.

• Process expertise: Epi Ingredients' calcium caseinate is produced by extrusion, while most competitors use spray drying technology. The powders produced by extrusion have a compact structure, irregularly shaped particles, and very little air entrapment.

• Explanations: High protein nutritional bars are nutrient-dense products based on balanced combinations of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, etc. One of the main problems with these bars is that they become harder over time. The right selection of proteins in a single index prevents them from hardening.

What's more: this product checks all the boxes from a nutritional standpoint. And we know how important this is for athletes.

In summary: why choose Epi Ingredients calcium caseinate to produce a high-protein bar?

• A powder with the perfect particle size and cohesive behavior to provide a smooth, nonfriable texture.

• High-quality milk proteins

• A high casein content with an extended time of releasing amino acids into the bloodstream promotes the maintenance and growth of muscles.

• Natural calcium content (1.4% of calcium) is ideal for nutritional formulation.

• Suitable for lactose-reduced labeling

With this innovation, EPI is in line with the trend towards on-the-go consumption, which is driving a new dynamic, as is the desire for natural products and more sophisticated formulas of technicality. With 65 million Europeans going to gyms and a 23% increase in the number of gyms in two years, 1 on-the-go consumer is looking for products that are easy to consume and are good for their health.