Kraft unveils new line of digestive-friendly dairy items
By Kate Rockwood,  Medill News Service

Kraft Foods Inc. plans to unveil a line of probiotic cheese cubes and individual cheese sticks that includes living microorganisms aimed at balancing naturally occurring gut flora and at aiding consumer digestion. A cottage cheese includes prebiotic fiber, marketed to help consumers boost their daily fiber intake and maintain regularity.

In March, Kraft became the first mainstream North American company to market probiotic cheese at a national level, selling LiveActive at Canadian supermarkets. The cheese is coming to the United States in September.

“Probiotics are hot hot hot and it seems like the United States is finally ready to embrace talking about bacteria in the gut,”  Donna Berry, editor of Dairy Food Magazine, said in a talk on industry trends at the American Dairy Products Institute’s annual conference in Chicago.

Dannon launched Activa yogurt at the beginning of 2006 and in its first year it surpassed $100 million in annual U.S. retail sales, a goal achieved by fewer than one tenth of 1 percent of all new products, according to Dannon.

Jim Armetta, 40, of Naperville, consumes three or four bottles of drinkable yogurt with probiotics manufactured by White Plains, N.Y.-based Dannon Co. He was turned onto the trend when his father, Dominic, was instructed to take probiotics by his doctor.

My 84-year-old father has a condition that affects his lungs, and it makes him more susceptible to infections,” Armetta said. “He was getting infections every one or two weeks. He started drinking probiotics at Christmas and he hasn’t had an infection since.”

In other parts of the world, probiotics are a well- established though still-expanding market. Dannon first introduced its DanActive line of probiotic drinkable yogurts in Europe in 1984.

Likewise, Dean Foods Co. recently brought its probiotic yogurt brand, Rachel’s Organic, to the United States. The brand has been a hit in the U.K. for years.

Morton Grove-based Lifeway Foods Inc. added a line of probiotic, organic milk drinks in January. Called ProBugs, the line is aimed at children, packaged in flexible, juice box-like pouches with no-spill tops.
In late March, Dean introduced probiotic cottage cheese under its Dean Foods, Country Fresh and Land O’ Lakes brands.

Probiotics fits into a larger trend of “functional” foods and beverages—products pumped with everything from Vitamin D to Omega-3 fatty acid in an effort to boost nutrition and lure customers willing to pay top dollar for super foods.

Americans got a sneak peek at the LiveActive label when Kraft introduced cottage cheese with prebiotic fiber under the Breakstone’s and Knudsen brands in late March.

Probiotics may protect against food poisoning
By Stephen Daniells, FoodNavigator.com 3-20-07

Irish scientists report that a combination of five probiotic strains may reduce food poisoning by salmonella, if results of their pig study can be translated to humans.

“The administered probiotic bacteria improved both the clinical and microbiological outcome of Salmonella infection,” wrote the researchers, led by Colin Hill from University College Cork. “These strains offer significant benefit for use in the food industry and may have potential in human applications.”

According to the European Commission, salmonella-induced food poisoning costs the U.K. economy alone billions each year, with 160,000 cases reported annually in Europe. About 1.4 million Americans are estimated to suffer annually from salmonella, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new research divided 15 weaned pigs and fed them milk supplemented with a mixture of five Lactobacillus probiotic strains (two strains of Lactobacillus murinus and one strain each of Lactobacillus salivarius subsp. salivarius, Lactobacillus pentosus, and Pediococcus pentosaceous), or placebo (regular milk) for 30 days.

After six days of the probiotics, the pigs were given an oral dose of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. The health and microbiology of the faeces were monitored for 23 days.

The pigs receiving probiotics showed reduced incidence, severity, and duration of diarrhoea as well as significantly lower numbers of Salmonella in faecal samples 15 days post-infection, reported the researchers in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The benefits for gut health have been reported to be due to the probiotic bacteria adhering to the walls of the intestine, which inhibits the ability of the pathogenic Salmonella to stick and colonize the gut, thereby reducing the infection.

Probiotic teams more useful than single strain
By Stephen Daniells, DairyReporter.com, 4-25-07

A combination of different probiotics strains reduces the ability of potentially pathogenic bacteria to colonize the gut more than single strains, says new research that proposes industry should look to expand research in this area.

The research, published in Food Research International, reports the effects of commercial probiotic strains of reducing the adhesion and colonization of pathogenic bacteria that could promote poor gut health.

“These results suggest that combinations of probiotics strains could be useful and more effective in inhibition of pathogen adhesion,” wrote lead author Carmen Collado from the Functional Foods Forum, University of Turku.

 “The inhibition and displacement profiles were very different suggesting that different mechanisms are implied in both processes.”

Probiotic products containing ‘friendly’ bacteria are now well accepted by consumers in many European countries, with putative benefits highlighted for gut and immune health.

The benefits for gut health have been reported to be due to the probiotic bacteria adhering to the walls of the intestine, which inhibits the ability of pathogenic bacteria to stick and colonize the gut, thereby reducing the infection.

The researchers, including collaborators from Abo Akademi University in Finland, evaluated the ability of four commercial probiotic strains (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, L. rhamnosus LC705, B. breve 99 and Propionibacterium freudenreichii ssp. shermanii JS) either alone or in various combinations to inhibit, displace and compete with selected pathogens (Bacteroides vulgatus DSM 1447, Clostidium histolyticum DSM 627, Clostridium difficile DSM 1296, Escherichia coli K2, Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 15313, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium ATCC 12028, Staphylococcus aureus DSM 20231).
Collado reports that all the different probiotic combinations tested inhibited pathogenic infection by over 40 percent for some pathogens tested, and proposed that they could be “excellent candidates” for their use as new combinations in fermented dairy products.

UC Davis food safety institute’s director to retire

When Jerry Gillespie, founding director of the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security at the University of California, Davis, retires July 1, leadership of the five-year-old institute will pass to interim director Rob Atwill, a Cooperative Extension veterinarian whose research focuses on waterborne infectious diseases.

A veterinary pathologist, Gillespie has guided development of the institute’s research and education program, drawing together scientific expertise from government, industry and academia to address critical issues related to the nation’s food supply.

Atwill, until recently, has been working at UC Davis’ Veterinary Medical Teaching and Research Center in Tulare. A member of the faculty since 1994, he currently is the lead epidemiologist researching the medical ecology and environmental spread of E. coli O157:H7 in the Salinas area.

In other leadership areas at the institute, Linda Harris and Michael Payne are guiding efforts in research and outreach, respectively.

Harris, a Cooperative Extension food microbiologist in the Department of Food Science and Technology, serves as the institute’s associate director for research. An internationally recognized leader in the area of microbial food safety, Harris’ research focuses on the microbiology of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as tree nuts. She is in charge of the competitive grants program at the institute and directs its research laboratory and program.

Payne is the institute’s outreach coordinator. A veterinarian, he has provided leadership for the California Dairy Research Foundation, the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Database, and special projects for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. He has led various outreach programs for animal welfare, food safety and environmental issues related to the dairy industry.

Through the institute, established in 2002, UC Davis’ School of Veterinary Medicine, College of Agricultural and Environmental  Sciences, and School of Medicine work in partnership with California’s Department of Food and Agriculture and Department of Health Services, as well as with federal regulatory agencies and various industries to address safety issues, with the goal of reducing food-borne illnesses in California and beyond.

Dairies aim to cut methane emissions, use trucks that run on fuel from cows
By John Holland, Modesto Bee staff writer

People in the dairy business are looking at two routes for improving the environment. One is literally a truck route. Western United Dairymen, based in Modesto, is launching a study in which four milk tankers supplying Hilmar Cheese Co. will run on methane derived from cow manure.

The yearlong project could reduce air pollution from diesel fuel while helping dispose of manure in a way that protects air and water, said Michael Marsh, the group’s chief executive officer.

The second effort involves a marketplace for credits that businesses could earn by reducing emissions believed to contribute to global warming.

Scientists say methane is one of the most potent of these gases if it is allowed to simply waft into the atmosphere from manure and other sources. Burning it to make energy—for heating, electricity generation and other uses—makes it much less of a threat, they say.

Under the credit system, a dairy farmer who controls methane from manure could receive certificates that could be sold to businesses that exceed emission standards.

Joseph Gallo Farms, a major cheesemaker in Atwater, already gets the credits with a manure digester installed in 2004. The farm captures about 30,000 tons of methane a year, and each ton is worth about $3.70 at the current price on the Chicago Climate Exchange, Gallo General Manager Carl Morris said.
“It’s not a fortune, but it’s not insignificant either,” said Morris, one of the speakers at a forum on the credits at the Stanislaus County Agricultural Center last week.

The credit income is on top of the money Gallo has saved by using methane in place of conventional fuels in its operations.

Global warming is believed to be caused by a buildup of atmospheric gases that trap the sun’s heat. The phenomenon, disputed by a minority of scientists, could disrupt agriculture and wildlife habitat, intensify heat waves and storms, and raise sea levels as polar ice melts.

Carbon dioxide, mainly from fossil fuels, is believed to be the main contributor by volume. But each ton of methane, from livestock manure and other sources, does almost 20 times as much harm, Morris said.
About 20 manure digesters are in place at California dairies, a tiny slice of the total farms. They and future digesters could help the state meet its goal of reducing climate-changing gases 30 percent by 2020.

“Agriculture stands to gain a lot from being able to control emissions,” said Ladi Asgill, a Modesto-based project manager for Sustainable Conservation, an environmental group that works with businesses.
The specific rules for measuring the reductions are being devised. Speakers at the forum said the system, at least for now, will not provide credits for feed crops planted by dairy farmers. The plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air as they grow.

The milk truck project is funded by a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Over the next year, liquefied methane from manure will be used in place of diesel in tankers supplying Hilmar Cheese from a Tulare County dairy farm, Marsh said.

The dairy group and several partners will try to see if this is a practical use of methane and whether it might be expanded to other wastes from farming and food processing, he said.