News

PromOat™ is now available as an in-store, point-of-purchase “boost” at Zumo Juice & Smoothie Bars, Europe’s largest juice and smoothie bar chain.

It is being trialled at a Zumo store in a shopping centre in Blanchardstown, just outside of Dublin. The store was specifically chosen for its customer demographics since it tends to attract a slightly older customer who is more concerned with health issues.

PromOat™ will be offered to customers when they are ordering their juice or smoothie. It will be trialled in this store for the next 6 weeks and assuming that sales go well, it will then be trialled at 3-5 other stores. Should it be successful in those stores, Zumo would then like to include it in their frozen yoghurts too.

News from the Victorian DIAA conference held on 11th and 12th May.

The annual VIC DIAA conference was held at the CQ Function centre in Melbourne on the 11th and 12th of May.

Shamrock Food had a trade stand at the conference where we met customers and friends to discuss starter cultures, beta-glucan, omega-3 and recruitment services. Our special guest at the stand was Ms Mara Bernasconi from our starter culture supplier, Clerici-Sacco in Italy. Mara met with many of our customers and dealt with questions ranging from sliminess on the surface of mozzarella to culture suggestions for Pecorino.

Pictured: Adrienne Heslin - Shamrock food, Kerrin Wallace - Shamrock Food, Mara Bernasconi - Clerici-Sacco

 

 

Shamrock gave away two bottles of Jameson Irish Whiskey for those who put their business cards in the "green hat".Congratulations to the two winners:

Peter Skene - Aussie Farmers Dairy
John Williams - Warrnambool Cheese and Butter.

Congraulations also to Shame Adamiak from Jindi Cheese who won the inaugural Champion Cheesemaker award for his Fire Engine Red cheese. The award, sponsored by Shamrock Food, was presented to Shane at the awards of excellence dinner in Melbourne on the 12th of May. Well done Shane!

Pictured: Mara Bernasconi - Clerici-Sacco, Vince Borello - Borello Cheese

 

Listeria in meat products

Listeria monocytogenes is a ubiquitous organism and because it can be found in raw meat it is a significant threat also to the fermented meat producing industry. Sacco, Italy’s leading commercial culture manufacturer has developed a range of bacteriocin producing starter cultures for the control of L. monocytogenes in meat products as well as for other food products.

Listeria monocytogenes

Listeriosis accounts only for approx. 0.02% of registered foodborne illness but is responsible for about 30% of the deaths. Infections can be fatal for people with the very young, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with a compromised immune system being most susceptible. Listeriosis can trigger a variety of diseases from diarrhoea to blood poisoning and meningitis. It can provoke miscarriages and harm unborn and newborn babies.

Listeria is widespread in the environment and present in all types of raw food products. It is very resistant to the influence of various physical and chemical factors. For example, L. monocytogenes may grow at 0 to 45°C, at pH 4.5 to 9, and in 10% salt-in-water. It can survive 80°C for 3-5 seconds, can resist freezing and drying, aggregates in biofilms, and is quite resistant to many anti-microbial cleaning agents. Therefore, if it becomes established on food processing equipment, it can be very difficult to remove. As a result, the risk of re-comtamination and growth on processed food products is always a potential hazzard.

 

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PromOat^TM, the oat beta glucan ingredient from Swedish company Biovelop, has been named “Best Natural Ingredient for Functional Drinks” at the 2011 Beverage Innovation magazine awards. The awards, which were held at a special gala evening in Washington DC as part of the 7th InnoBev Global Beverages Summit, attracted more than 150 entries from 22 countries in 16 categories.

PromOat^TM beat off strong competition from around the world to triumph in the “Best Natural Ingredient” category and reinforce its fast-growing reputation as one of the most exciting new food and beverage ingredients for many years.

Biovelop’s Director of Sales and Marketing, David Peters, commented: “We are delighted and very proud to receive this prestigious award for PromOat^TM from Beverage Innovation and would like to thank the panel of judges for their recognition.”

PromOat^TM has been attracting considerable attention in the beverage world since it featured in Marks and Spencer’s Super Juice drink, which is designed to help consumers lower their cholesterol in a natural way. It is also being used by a number of fruit juice, smoothie and dairy manufacturers in products due for launch in the coming months.

“PromOat^TM is an especially attractive ingredient for beverage manufacturers, since it provides access to FDA-, EFSA- and Health Canada-approved health claims,” said Peters. “PromOat^TM enables them to incorporate the health benefits of oats into a beverage without the oat taste or lumpiness. In the context of an ingredient that is all-natural, clean-label and gluten-free, substantiated health claims and strong functionality are a very powerful combination.”