• Are You Moving Towards Sustainable Palm Products?
• Who makes the healthiest cereals?
• Wolfgang's Grappa - the still in action
• New Foodinc member, Gary Broome is a key note speaker at the NZIFST Conference
• New Foodinc member, Jan Wuis to speak at the 8th Annual Food Safety Summit
• Dave Pooch Awarded Fellow of NZIFST
• Marion Cumming Receives Exemplary Services Award for Services to NZIFST
• Interested in Permaculture?
• FSANZ Proposed Nutrient Profiling that scores the healthiness of foods
• Consultant News
• Dave Pooch joins Foodinc
• Anny Dentener to participate in Domestic Food Review
• The Brandy Man - Have Still; Will Travel
• "May contain" .... allergens?
• Assistance with RMP, HACCP or other food safety management systems.

:: Are You Moving Towards Sustainable Palm Products?

If you use palm products in commerce, manufacture, agriculture or in the home, sooner or later you will have to face up to the question “Are palm products sustainable?”

Past Foodinc member Geoff Webster runs through the issues, and explains that it is possible to buy Certified Sustainable Palm Oil and Palm Kernel Oil.
>> Read the article here.

:: Who makes the healthiest cereals?

Hubbard's outscores its main competitors on the Nutrient Profiling of it's cereals, concludes Anny Dentener (ADECRON Food Tech Consulting), after collating the results of last year's Nutrient Profiling workshops (November 2008).

Roughly half of the 141 cereals fail to get a score that would allow them to make health claims if/when the FSANZ P293 proposals come in. The NP score is worked out from "penalty" points for high energy, saturated fat, sugar and salt and "bonus" points for protein, fibre and natural fruit & vege & nut content. Whereas Hubbard's at 70% scores better than Sanitarium (55%) and Kellogg's (46%), Pam's does far worse at only 18%, against the average of 52%.

Cereals are a good example of the use of Nutrient Profiling in a food category as about half fall in the area of a score good enough (< 4) to make a health claim (under proposed P293), and the other half fails to meet that criterion.
>> Read the full report here.

:: Wolfgang's Grappa - the still in action

Wolfgang's 2009 grappa is ready for bottling now. The partly fermented grape skins from the neighbour's vineyard mixed with water, some extra sugar and yeast bubbled away for about four weeks and last Saturday the time had come to distill the liquid into grappa ... also known as the poor man's brandy.

After distilling the alcohol content averaged out at just over 50% ... a bit strong for drinking. Wolfgang will keep half of it in glass flagons at this concentration and add oak shavings - this should colour and age the grappa nicely for consumption in a few years. The other half he will water down to drinking strength and bottle it.

The grappa will improve with age but can also be enjoyed as instant gratification ... or should that be instant grappafication ...?

:: New Foodinc member, Gary Broome is a key note speaker at the NZIFST Conference

Gary Broome is a key note speaker at the NZIFST Conference “Food Elements - Putting the pieces together”. Gary’s business Foodtech International is actively involved in transferring New Zealand food process technology internationally to countries as diverse as Norway, India and Brazil. Appropriately, his presentation is titled “New business, market development and technology transfer – Getting it out there”.

The NZIFST conference venue is Christchurch from 23 – 25 June 2009. Visit www.nzifst.org.nz/events/annual-conf.asp for full program and on line registration.

:: New Foodinc member, Jan Wuis to speak at the 8th Annual Food Safety Summit

New member, Jan Wuis of foodtech.help ltd will be one of the presenters at Conferenz's 8th Annual Food Safety Summit being held at Stamford Plaza, Auckland on 4-5th May 2009.

Jan’s presentation is titled “Building food safety into product design and development”. For full details of the program and to register visit www.conferenz.co.nz/the-8th-annual-food-safety-summit.html.

:: Dave Pooch Awarded Fellow of NZIFST

Dave Pooch was one of nine NZIFST members recognised as a Fellow of The New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology at their Awards Dinner in June.

After setting up and selling his own food processing business during the 1980’s, Dave’s contribution to the food industry has been outside New Zealand in developing countries. His award recognises his contribution in setting up small scale food processing facilities and providing training in safe food manufacturing. He has worked for UN, NZAID and other development agencies in over 20 countries throughout Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

Dave was also re-elected to Vice President of NZIFST for a second year.

:: Marion Cumming Receives Exemplary Services Award for Services to NZIFST

Marion became the fifth person to receive the NZIFST Exemplary Services Award since its inception in 1993, at the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology Awards Dinner in June.

She first joined NZIFST in 1972 when employed at Crop and Food Research in Christchurch. Throughout the years she has been very active in Branch and National affairs. She was briefly Secretary of the Canterbury Branch before work took her to the Waikato. After travelling overseas she renewed her membership and in 1980 commenced several years on the Auckland Branch committee culminating in Chairman.

She was involved with the NZIFST Guide to the Preparation of a Sensory Evaluation Programme for the Food Industry publication.

In 2003 she took on the role of National Treasurer for a period of three years. During this time she upgraded the accounting and financial reporting procedures, assisted with the rewrite of the Institute’s constitution to meet current legal requirements and took over the role of Journal Committee Chairperson, a role she continues to fulfill.

After relinquishing the Treasurer reins, she turned her attention to reinvigorating the Auckland Branch. The enthusiastic 2007 committee steadily built member interest and attendance at Auckland events.

:: Interested in Permaculture?

In addition to his consultancy business in food safety, quality and environmental management, Wolfgang Hiepe has a special interest in permaculture which he is practicing on his property west of Kaiwaka. Wolfgang will appear in two episodes of “OFF THE RADAR” produced by TV ONE which commences on Sunday 31 August at 7.00 pm - there are going to be 13 episodes. For visitors to our web site that are interested in learning more about permaculture we recommend that you tune into this program - it promises to be entertaining, funny and educational.

:: FSANZ Proposed Nutrient Profiling that scores the healthiness of foods

The Nutrient Profiling system scores food on a balance of “good” and “bad” nutrition aspects. Under the proposal P293 foods scoring well will be permitted to carry health claims. Since early 2007, Anny Dentener has been applying the Nutrient Profiling system as it has been proposed and modified by FSANZ to many of her clients’ current and proposed products. She presented a paper on how to get the best out of the latest version of the Nutrient Profile Calculator (April 2008), at the NZIFST Conference in June. Then in August ran a fully booked out workshop for the NZIFST Auckland Branch. To review her presentation to the NZIFST conference and find the worksheets from the workshop visit www.adecron.co.nz.

:: Dave Pooch joins Foodinc

Foodinc welcomes Dave Pooch to the Foodinc group of consulting food technologists. Dave adds his international and development expertise to the group’s wide skill base. Dave has worked in many countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific over his career. He brings an entrepreneurial aspect too as he has set up, operated and later sold off his own food processing company. Dave is currently Vice President of the NZ Institute of Food Science and Technology. He is also a Director of Peppermint Press Ltd, the company that publishes the Institute’s journal - Food New Zealand. More about Dave here.

:: Anny Dentener to participate in Domestic Food Review

Anny Dentener has recently accepted an invitation to participate in the NZFSA Food Manufacturers and Processors Advisory Forum on the Domestic Food Review. She represents food type dietary supplement manufacturers in relation to Supplemented Foods, as the authority works through drafting the new Food Bill.

:: Consultant News

We said adieu to two of our consultants at the end of August.

Ron Clifton was a founding member of FoodInc and has been with the group since its inception in 1997. Ron will be concentrating exclusively on his food safety auditing work for SGS. Auditing has progressively taken more of his time over recent years to the point where he is no longer able to consider consultancy or contract work in food safety systems.

Peter Hewitt joined FoodInc in 2002 after 20 years with Goodman Fielder Milling and Baking division. Peter has opted to return to full time employment and has taken a position with Heller’s based in Auckland.

Many of you will no doubt come in contact with Ron & Peter in the New Zealand food industry and the FoodInc team will continue to meet with them socially.

:: The Brandy Man - Have Still; Will Travel

A New Zealand first? - mobile contract distilling. Read the article here:
>> The Brandyman (Word document, 26 KB)

:: "May contain" .... allergens? (Martyn Atack; 29 November 2005).

"Inconsistent and often confusing labelling practices continue to put consumers with food allergies at risk. Statements such as “May contain” “Made on equipment that processes….” are unregulated within the Australia New Zealand Food Standards and in fact are unregulated anywhere in the world."

A new report reviews the confusing situation surrounding the labelling of food allergens, from Martyn Atack, Atack Industries, free for download here:
>> May Contain …… Allergens? (Word document, 46 KB)

:: Need assistance with RMP, HACCP or other food safety management systems? (Edited by Peter Dentener; 17 October 2004).

Looking for help to maintain and update your RMP, HACCP or other food safety management systems? Following up on requests from his clients, Wolfgang Hiepe, food safety consultant in the FoodInc Consulting Group, outlines below the services offered to the food industry.

He says: "I am now asked more and more to help clients with the maintenance of the RMPs and other management systems. Most premises that were licensed under the Meat Act have now developed their Risk Management Programmes to comply with the Animal Products Act". These clients are small to medium sized companies in the meat and food industry who would typically not have a full time Technical Manager or Quality Assurance Manager. Support functions are offered to clients on a contract basis where they do not want to formally employ someone and/or where their own staff are too busy.

Services can be tailored to include things like staff training, internal auditing, collection of environmental swabs or product samples, manual updates, compliance management, calibration, vermin control checks. There may also be other things in this line that you might want help with.

If you think there may be something you need help with, please visit the FoodInc Food Safety page for more details on services offered by Wolfgang and our other available consultants.