Dairy News Flash July 27

Source: The Economic Times

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/new-zealand-upset-over-indias-silence-on-opening-farm-and-dairy-sector-to-imports/articleshow/15151870.cms

New Zealand upset over India’s silence on opening farm and dairy sector to imports

NEW DELHI: The proposed free trade agreement between India and New Zealand has hit a speed breaker due to the Centre's silence on opening the country's dairy and farm goods sector to imports. The broad-based free trade agreement that proposes to cover goods, services and investment was supposed to be concluded by March.

The agreement is important for India as it hopes to get more work visas for its professionals especially teachers, healthcare providers, technicians, IT experts, architects and hospitality providers.

The commerce department has told a negotiating team from New Zealand that visited New Delhi recently that it was yet to get a nod from the ministries of agriculture and food and therefore was not in a position to make any offers in the agriculture and dairy sectors.

"The New Zealand team was disappointed and nothing significant could happen at the meeting as its offers in areas important to New Delhi such as services is contingent upon what it gets in the farm and dairy sectors," a government official told ET.

New Zealand was also not happy with the safeguard measures India has proposed to guard its agriculture sector that will allow the country to increase import duties several times if there is a surge in imports.

The India-New Zealand free trade negotiation that began in 2009 have already missed March 2012 deadline set when New Zealand Prime Minister John Key visited India last year. The eighth round of negotiations that took place in New Delhi in end June was supposed to move the talks towards conclusion but got stuck on dairy products.

"There is no way we could have made any offers in the dairy sector without taking in views of the agriculture and food ministries as it is a very sensitive sector," the official said.

India has not yet given any significant concession in dairy to any of its other FTA partners including Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka and the Asean.

The dairy industry, however, is central to New Zealand's economy and it is not willing to seal its offer in services without commitments in the area.

"We are absolutely aware of the sensitivities that you have in your agriculture sector. But there is scope to work around it," New Zealand trade minister Tim Groser had told ET earlier in an interview.

Source: Hindustan Times

Armed with degrees, women take shot at dairy farming:Women, armed with fancy degrees at that, are the least likely participants in a training programme for dairy farming. Or so you thought! Five young women have enrolled for the two-week programme of the Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University's (GADVASU). The goal is to take up the family business, and thus prove that sons are not the automatic heirs, in a state shamed by widespread female foeticide. "I and my sister have decided to join the dairy farming training course because after completing our graduation, we did not get the job that we would have liked. So we thought that training in a vocation will make us worthy of expanding our family trade, and also make us our own boss," said Rajveer Kaur, a resident of Sherpur of Moga district, whose sister Mandeep Kaur is one of her four siblings, all girls."Dairy farming is not seen as an educated women's preference, but it gives us an opportunity to be entrepreneurs, like our father," added Mandeep.

Raikot's Rashpal Kaur, who has an MBA, has also joined: "I actually believe dairy is the best profession for educated women. It allows you to stay at home, be your own boss, and it helps that my family is already doing it. I was working with a private company after completing my MBA, but one fine day I figured that dairy farming could fit rather well in my plans."

Dr Harish Verma, head of GADVASU's department of veterinary, animal husbandry and extension education, said, "Dairy farming is all about management, and it's a very good sign that of the 50 participants, five are well-educated women."

Of the male participants, most are not very highly educated and are farmers looking to merely enhance their knowledge.

The GADVASU management is so enthusiastic about the women joining the course that its has waived their fee. "We just charge them the cost of the tea that we offer. They will not pay the Rs. 500 fee," said Dr Verma.

"Besides teaching them basics and giving tips on how to buy milch animals, we will also take the trainees to meet a successful dairy farmer.

http://record-eagle.com/archive/x1236708285/Slate-Why-do-we-drink-only-cows-milk;

Why do we drink only cows milk?

Walk down a dairy aisle and you may start to notice how little we've done with the whole concept. Worldwide, there are about 6,000 mammal species, each with its own unique milk, but Americans get at least 97 percent of all our dairy products from one animal. (That would be the cow.) Even at my local Whole Foods, purveyors of exotica like shad roe and that kombucha stuff, there was only a single brand of goat's milk. "EASY TO DIGEST!" reads the desperate carton.

Over at the cheese counter, the situation was a little better. Sheep's milk made a decent showing. But was that it?

"There's a buffalo-milk mozzarella over in the refrigerator section, but yeah," the cheesemonger told me. "I know a chef who's trying to make a pig's-milk cheese. I'm not sure how that's going."

Abroad, things are a little more diverse: Various foreigners drink the milk of the camel, the yak, the water buffalo, the reindeer, the elk and a few other animals. With the exception of the horse, whose milk is fermented and drunk in central Asia as the lightly alcoholic kumis, all dairy animals of any importance are ruminants, a class of mammal whose four-chambered stomachs allow the production of terrific amounts of milk from high-fiber, low-nutrient pasturage. Their large, graspable teats make milking easy. (Inspect the belly of your cat or dog and you'll get an idea why we don't milk our pets: lots of itty-bitty nipples.)

The three dairy animals familiar to Westerners were domesticated between 10,000 B.C. and 8000 B.C. in the Fertile Crescent. Goats and sheep were probably first, followed by cows. All three have since been bred to improve temperament and output, but cows have responded the most profoundly.

The ancestor of the European milch cow was the ox-like wild aurochs, which finally went extinct in the 17th century. The aurochs could be fierce and stubborn, but a few centuries of breeding transformed it into an animal so docile it will actually line up to be milked and so prolific that a single cow produces around 100 pounds of milk a day. The cow's genome, for whatever reason, responded readily to human dabbling. In this, cows are like wolves, from which we've created dog breeds as different as Chihuahuas and Great Danes, and unlike cats, which all look and act pretty much the same despite having been domesticated back in the Neolithic era. Given its genetic pliability, it was probably inevitable that the cow would become a major dairy animal wherever it could survive.

In America, cows never had any real competition. The ice age had scoured the continent of all of its large ruminants, with the exception of the bison, and Native Americans had no dairy tradition for the colonists to adopt. So, as Deborah Valenze recounts in "Milk," Europeans brought cows along with them when they set off for North America and then let these autonomous food factories graze on the continent's unlimited vegetation until their milk or meat was needed. The cows thrived, to say the least: Between 1627 and 1629, while the colonists were fretting about other things, the number of cattle in Virginia grew from 2,000 to 5,000.

The iron fist of cow-milk hegemony isn't just thanks to cows' high output and doziness. Cow's milk has some real aesthetic and practical advantages: It separates itself into cream and milk, so it can be made into an easily drinkable beverage as well as all the luscious cream-based comestibles, such as ice cream and creme fraiche. Its fat content is similar to that of human milk, which makes it familiar to our palates, and its relative blandness makes it an attractive blank slate for the creation of cheeses with a range of flavor profiles and consistencies, from runny Camemberts to rock-hard Goudas.

But what are we missing out on by abstaining from other mammals' milk? Take the goat: Its milk is tangier, richer, and, to reasonable persons, much tastier than cow's milk. The superior flavor owes a great deal to the fact that goat's milk does not separate; the cream is knitted into the milk. Goats produce the most milk of any mammal relative to body size, which would make them attractive to industrial dairies if they weren't so small. At best, dairy goats are the size of a Newfoundland; milk output averages only around a few gallons a day. A direr failing: Goat's milk cannot easily be made into butter.

As for sheep's milk, almost no one in the United States or anywhere else drinks it straight. It has twice the fat of cow's milk and human milk, making it too rich to be very appealing as a beverage. This fattiness endears it to the world's artsier cheesemakers, who find in sheep's milk a profound communicator of terroir.

"The sheep people are a weird bunch," says one chef, who wanted to remain anonymous so as not to offend his favorite cheesemaker. "Sheep are difficult to raise, and fickle. You don't get much yield, and the cheese isn't that popular, so you're talking about an eccentric person. It's very difficult."

Unpalatable fat and protein levels keep some milks off the shelves, but the difficulty of milking recalcitrant beasts can be no less an obstacle. Consider water buffalo, which are raised in Campania, Italy, to make the otherworldly mozzarella di bufala but are otherwise little known in the West. Water buffalo are smart and watchful and have giant horns — in other words, they're dangerous — yet their milk has been a cornerstone of the most dairy-crazed cuisine in the world, that of India, for 1,000 years. Indian cooks use buffalo milk in cream sauces, boil and coagulate it for paneer, or reduce it to a paste called khoa that becomes the basis for desserts such as the rosewater-sweetened gulab jamun. The low availability of water-buffalo milk in the United States limits how authentic an Indian meal you can hope to have, and a few dairies are trying to fill the niche, but water buffalo are difficult animals for noobs to deal with.

One Wisconsin dairyman (a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli military) who had acquired a herd of dairy buffalo told a newspaper that milking them was more difficult than leading troops into war.

Camel's milk, which is sometimes the only source of water in the arid climates of the Middle East and parts of Africa, isn't much easier to obtain. Gil Riegler, who runs the Oasis Camel Dairy in Ramona, Calif., says a typical camel produces around two gallons of milk a day in two 90-second long bursts and only while a calf is in the act of nursing (from a different teat). And once you've got the milk, you can't do much with it other than drink it. The low-solid content of camel's milk means it cannot be processed into butter or cheese without high-tech intervention.

Nonetheless, Riegler (who has yet to secure to necessary Agriculture Department permits to sell his milk) is a great believer in the product: "Where camel milk is available," he asserts, "people will prefer to drink it." He says camel's milk contains insulin and can improve quality of life for diabetics (seems legit) and cites stories about it treating autism (does not). To aid in water retention, camels consume about eight times as much sodium as cows, so their milk can be weirdly salty, but it can also be sweet. On Bizarre Foods America, Andrew Zimmern sipped some of Riegler's milk and pronounced it "fantastic." But the fact that camel's milk was on a show called Bizarre Foods makes a prima facie case that the American palate may not be quite ready for it.

And pig's milk, alas, is also not quite ready for the American palate. With a little effort, I tracked down the chef I heard about at Whole Foods, the one who's trying to make pig's cheese. It's Edward

Lee of Louisville's 610 Magnolia and Top Chef. "Anyone who farms pigs would say that pigs' milk would make an incredible cheese," he says. "The problem is that it's nearly impossible to milk pigs. When sows are lactating, they get very aggressive. They're not docile like cows. They're smart, skittish, suspicious and paranoid. They do not like you to get up in their business."

Lee managed to accumulate a few jars' worth of pigs' milk, from which he made half a cup of pig ricotta that he says was delicious. Getting even such a small amount of milk required jackal-like derring-do: Lee crept up on the sows while they were sleeping, frantically pinched at their tiny nipples, then ran away when they woke up and started to freak out.

If only there were an industry that made pig-milking machines.

"What we've discovered," says Lee, "uh, what we've concluded, you know, is basically that the machine that would fit a pig's teat is a human breast pump. It fits perfectly."

Source: Business Line

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-others/tp-states/article3654905.ece;

UP Plan outlay targets 10% growth in livestock sector:

Uttar Pradesh has got an annual Plan size of Rs 57,800 crore for 2012-13. This includes Rs 800 crore Central assistance for the annual Kumbh Mela. Last fiscal, the State had an outlay of Rs 47,000 crore.

The Plan size was finalised on Wednesday after a meeting between the Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Chief Minister, Mr Akhilesh Yadav.

Satisfied with the outlay, Mr Yadav told reporters that it was a “very good start”.

Mr Yadav said the State had set a goal of 10 per cent growth rate in the terminal year of the 12th Plan along with creation of additional employment generation opportunities to 8.3 million persons. It will also target a 5 per cent growth in agriculture and 10 per cent plus growth in dairy, animal husbandry, fisheries and horticulture. 

Briefing the Plan panel, Mr Yadav said, “To achieve the targeted growth of 10 per cent in the terminal year of the 12th Plan (2012-17), an investment of Rs 16.70 lakh crore will be required, out of which Rs 4.86 lakh crore will be in public sector and Rs 11.84 lakh crore in private sector.”

He said a new industrial and agriculture policy is being worked out and would be announced shortly.

On the State’s Plan performance, Mr Ahluwalia said it needed to further encourage private participation by creating an atmosphere conducive to investment. Also, education and health should be given priority while working out the development

strategy. He also advised the large State to optimise use of limited water resources while planning for 5 per cent growth in agriculture.

Source: The Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Ultra-high-temperature-pasteurisation-retains-nutrition/articleshow/15037572.cms;

'Ultra-high-temperature pasteurisation retains nutrition'

PUNE: Ultra-high-temperature (UHT) pasteurisation technique is an important attribute in the Indian setting, as the technique allows retention of the highest quality and nutrition of milk from start to consumption point, said senior scientist A K Singh of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI).

Singh was speaking at a workshop held for the media to spread awareness about the impact of modern technologies on the quality and nutrition of milk at Tetra Pak's Takwe plant near Pune on Wednesday. New Delhi-basedHeal Foundation organised the workshop.

The conference highlighted how technology could contribute to ensuring quality and nutrition of milk from dairy to doorstep and how a mother can be sure of the nutrition she is providing her child. "Only good quality milk can undergo UHT treatment, which is then packaged in six-layer protective packaging," Singh said.

Jagmeet Madan, principal, department of food and nutrition at SVT College of Home Science, SNDT Women's University, Mumbai said, "If any technology ensures that nutrition of the milk remains intact till it finally reaches the child, then nothing can be better than UHT milk in aseptic cartons, as retention of the milk's nutrients is quite a serious issue for overall child nutrition and health. "Moreover, UHT milk does not need to be boiled before consumption, if technology is ready to help, then why not adopt it," said Madan, who is also president of the Indian Dietetics Association, Mumbai Chapter.

B L Satyanarayan, specialist in aseptic technology at Tetra Pak said, "Our interactions with mothers, nutritionists and even doctors reveal several misconceptions about UHT milk in cartons. The public may not be aware that milk in cartons does not require preservatives and does not need refrigeration (till the pack is opened)".

Source: The Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/ITC-may-foray-into-new-homecare-categories/articleshow/15036812.cms;

ITC may foray into new homecare categories, beverages market including dairy

KOLKATA: Hospitality to FMCG major ITC may enter new categories of homecare, as well as the beverages business, as it has already made a mark in the personal care product and foods business, mostly with home grown brands.

ITC has presence in home care segments through incense sticks under Mangaldeep brand. Sources close to the development indicated that close to the Rs 30,000-crore conglomerate is looking into homecare categories like room spray and mosquito coils. "Homecare is one of the fastest growing areas and a large segment too. This could be a good segment for ITC to expand," sources added.

It has been learnt that ITC is contemplating to enter beverages segment, including dairy, in future. ITC chairman Y C Deveshwar had said in an interview recently that it may look at opportunity in dairy. Incidentally, ITC has already started working with farmers. It is assisting the farmers in selling milk at market price as part of its CSR initiative. "It is also putting up a dairy to process the milk. As of now, it is a part of CSR only. However, this is also true that out

of the untapped food market, the biggest segment is beverages including dairy. But the distribution system for milk product is completely different from other foods businesses," added sources.

The foods business of ITC has already crossed Rs 3,700-crore mark as per the latest annual report. Going by consumer spends, Sunfeast is a Rs 1,800-crore brand followed by Aashirvaad at Rs 1,200 crore and Bingo at Rs 500 crore. The executive director of ITC, Kurush N Grant, had earlier told TOI that ITC would only enter into the categories where eventually it will be in top three. "We have exited greetings card business because it was not picking up. Similarly, ITC will enter only those segments where going by turnover or market share, we will be among the leaders," he added. According to him, ITC is already in top three in biscuits, snacks, noodles and staples with home grown brands. In PCP as well, ITC is among the leaders with home-grown brands like Vivel, Fiama Di Wills and Superia.

ITC was supposed to invest Rs 23,000 crore in five years. Now, it has revised the time span to six-and-a-half years. The investment was planned in hotels, FMCG and agriculture. Commenting on the new FMCG business, the chairman had earlier said that it would start making profit in five years. "Before I hang up my boots, the new FMCG business will start making profit," he said in the last AGM. The new FMCG business includes personal care products, foods, education and stationary, lifestyle retailing and others.

1. Source: The Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Goa-government-to-increase-support-price-of-milk-to-Rs-30-per-litre/articleshow/14989098.cms;

Goa government to increase support price of milk to Rs 30 per litre

PANAJI: Goa is still a long way from boosting milk production in the state. The milk production in the state of Goa has been pegged at 2.1 lakh litres which is less than half of the requirement the state. 4.5 lakh litres of milk are consumed in the state everyday as per statistics from the animal husbandry department.

To reverse this trend, the government has decided to introduce a new support price for milk at Rs 30 per litre to dairy farmers supplying milk to the diary society. The support price will be implemented from September 2012.

Presently, the rate for raw cow milk from local Goan suppliers is Rs 25.21 per litre whereas processed pasteurised milk from suppliers from outside the state is Rs 24.25 per litre. The rate for raw buffalo milk from local Goan suppliers is Rs 28.23 per litre whereas processed pasteurised from outside Goa is Rs 31.80 per litre.

2. Source: The Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/diet/Non-dairy-diet-Is-dairy-fattening/articleshow/14942690.cms;

Non dairy diet: Is dairy fattening?

Common perception says that dairy products are fattening and it's best to leave them out from our diet. 

Is this perception about dairy making the majorities protein, calcium and zinc deficient? To broaden our horizon, Nutritionist Namita Nanal from Evolve Medspa lays bares the facts about dairy products and helps us answer the question: Is dairy fattening?

Ms. Nanal explains, "Dairy products are nourishing. They are rich in proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. On the whole, if a diet is poor i.e. rich in fatty foods than that can result in weight gain. Chances of gaining weight only because of having dairy food is moderately less."

She further elaborates the importance of milk based products and their impact on the body, "Ghee contains butyric acid, a fatty acid which has antiviral and anti cancerous properties. It also aids digestion and nutrient assimilation. White butter contains lauric acid, lecithin etc. hence ghee and white butter should not be avoided but can be eatten in moderation."

On low fat substitutions for dairy products, she says "Low fat substitutes are available in the market. They contain almost same amount of nutrients as the full fat products contain. Only the fat percentage is reduced. Skimmed milk, low fat cheese, paneer and yogurt are available. These are good options for people on weight loss diets."

Dairy is good for immunity. Therefore, if you follow a non dairy diet, there are chances that you are cutting out important vitamins that are essential for your body. Namita Nanal says, "Dairy products are rich in nutrients. Milk, yogurt, cheese, etc are packed with nutrients like protein, calcium, zinc and some B vitamins. Protein is a macronutrient; protein is an important part of enzymes, hormones, muscles, nail, hair etc. It is also important for good immunity. It is absolutely crucial for overall good health. Protein quality of dairy products is very good."

From protein we jump to calcium. She says, "Calcium is a mineral that plays a vital role in building of strong healthy bones and teeth. Calcium absorption is at its peak till the age of 25 to 30 years. Hence Calcium intake needs to be optimum for a healthy foundation."

Dairy is important for vegetarians, as it replenishes calcium and protein deficiencies. "For vegetarians dairy products are an important source of proteins and calcium. A compound, trans-palmitoleic acid, is a fatty acid found in milk, cheese, yogurt and butter (Via - Harvard School of Public Health). It is not produced by the body and thus only comes from your diet."

Ms Nanal concludes: "Dairy products are packed with nutrients and contain good fats. It is the overall diet which you need to take care of rather than eliminating dairy products."

3. Source: The Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Buffalo-milk-production-hit-by-lack-of-fodder/articleshow/15012139.cms

Buffalo milk production hit by lack of fodder

PUNE: The break in monsoon rainfall in the district has brought down the buffalo milk production by about 12,000 litres per day, said Vivek Kshirsagar, managing director of the Pune District Co-operative Milk Producers' Federation Ltd, popularly known as Katraj dairy.

Speaking to TOI, he said, "Lack of green fodder due to inadequate rainfall has affected milk production. Crops such as jowar and maize are commonly cultivated by the farmers during the kharif season, parts of which can be used as fodder. We used to get a supply of 25,000 litres of buffalo milk every day. For the last few weeks the supply has gone down by 12,000 litres per day."

The supply of cow milk is showing a marginal variation but has not dropped as drastically as the buffalo milk production, as cows are less sensitive to the lack of green fodder. If the rainfall situation continues unchanged, lack of fodder will soon affect cow milk production too, Kshirsagar said.

"Every day, we are in contact with farmers from various parts of the district, who have been complaining about the drop in milk yield and enquiring about alternative measures to increase milk production," he said.

The dairy sector usually goes through a period of shortage during summer, when fodder and water are not available. The insufficient rainfall during June and July this year has reduced availability of green fodder. The green grass grown everywhere on barren land is a major source of fodder to farmers, but this year it has not been available in abundance, Kshirsagar said.

"This has lowered milk production, especially in buffaloes, as the animal prefers cold weather and water. There is no water in small lakes or check dams in the villages where farmers can leave their cattle for some time. This has also forced dairies in the district to buy milk from adjacent districts at higher prices to meet the city's demand," he said.

Kshirsagar said, "The district produces around 20 lakh litres of milk daily, but a significant portion of it goes to private companies manufacturing milk products such as cheese and butter. Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad need some 10 lakh litres of milk per day, a demand that cannot be met due to the decline in supply."

Baramati and Indapur tehsils have their own cooperative milk dairies and do not supply milk to Katraj dairy. Both the dairies have their own marketing channels and their clients mainly include milk product manufacturing companies.

Cow milk is sold at Rs 17 per litre, while buffalo milk is sold at Rs 25.25 per litre. Kshirsagar said that there would be no rise in milk price in the immediate future as the state could receive good rainfall in next two months.

There are about 85 milk brands in the retail market in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. Compared to cow milk, buffalo milk is known for its high nutritional value and to maintain it, dairies have started mixing milk powder in the milk. It is an attempt to maintain the quality of the milk as well as meet the growing demand, he maintained.

4. Source: www.fnbnews.com

http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=32194&sectionid=40;

Unlike most other Asian countries, dairy products are a well-established part of the national diet in India. With an annual output of more than 100 million tonnes, India is the largest milk producer in the world. Currently, only 13 per cent of the milk is processed. The unorganised sector distributes 85 per cent, however, the organised sector is growing rapidly. Demand for packaged milk and milk products will increase because the growing middle-class, health-conscious consumer segment - especially in towns and cities - is adopting Western lifestyles and consequently buying more and more processed and packaged food. The availability of fresh / pasteurised and long life / UHT milk is increasing nationwide.

Brace for yoghurt war: Pepsi shifts aim from cola, takes on Dannon & Chobani

Are the cola wars at an end?

Brace for the yogurt wars, as PepsiCo, long focused on battling its archrival, Coca-Cola, takes on the likes of Dannon and General Mills, not to mention Fage and Chobani.

In the most visible sign yet of its efforts to curb its reliance on soda sales, PepsiCo this month will start selling yogurt in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states.

The products will initially be manufactured in Europe by Theo Muller, a large privately held German dairy company that has formed a joint venture with PepsiCo to capitalize on the growing yogurt market in the United States."We're very excited about this," said Sam Lteif, chief executive of Muller Quaker Dairy, the joint venture. "There's a huge opportunity for dairy in the US market, and we're optimistic about getting into it."So confident are the two companies that they are investing $206 million in a 363,000-square-foot plant in Batavia, N.Y., announced in February, that will employ some 180 people and churn out 5 billion cups of yogurt a year.

PepsiCo, under its chief executive, Indra K. Nooyi, has been working to decrease its reliance on sugarycarbonated beverages and snacks by developing new products and retooling old ones to increase their nutritional quality while remaining true to the company's more playful roots.Nooyi calls this the "fun for you, better for you, good for you" strategy, and it has led to innovations that have reduced sodium in Lays potato chips and other snack chips and new sweeteners to reduce calories in juice products like Trop 50 and sodas like Pepsi Next.

The goal with Muller by Quaker is to add fun to yogurt, which Americans have regarded as a dutiful but not delicious snack. "It's been an 'I gotta have it because it's good for me' kind of a product," said Dr. Mehmood Khan, who oversees PepsiCo's global research and development. "The 'wanna have it' was missing."

Or as Stefan Muller, the great-grandson of Muller's founder, said: "Here in America, yogurt is so boring."

He noted that Americans on average consumed 12 pounds of yogurt a year, or half as much as Canadians and a third the amount of Europeans. "We look at the products and it's no wonder it's so low," he said.

Muller by Quaker will try to change that with what Lteif calls "mainstream premium" products that fill a gap between mass brands like Dannon and Yoplait and niche Greek yogurts like Fage and Chobani.

Sales of yogurt have been strong in Kroger stores across the country for the last several years, said Alan Faust, director of dairy perishable and frozen foods at the Kroger Co. "It has a healthier image and is tied to a healthier lifestyle," Faust said. "Some Greek is even being used as a meal replacement."

He has tasted the new Muller by Quaker products and says they represent an entirely new variety of yogurt, falling somewhere between Greek and conventional yogurts. "It's a really high quality, flavorful product with good body texture," he said.

Two varieties of the Muller by Quaker yogurts, one conventional and one Greek, come in square rather than traditional round packages with one corner filled with an ingredient that the consumer can add to the yogurt by folding the corner or using a spoon. Besides traditional fruit flavors like strawberry and blueberry, these supplements include caramelized almonds, tiny chocolate-covered crunch balls and granola.

The third variety is called Fruit Up because the fruit comes in a mousse that sits on top of the yogurt for the consumer to stir in. That allows the consumer to smell the peaches or raspberries as soon as the foil cover is removed.Muller by Quaker also seeks to address one of the biggest consumer complaints about yogurt: its texture. Consumers find Greek yogurts dry and chalky, while conventional yogurt is seen as watery and tasteless.

"You have five senses, and we're aiming to hit at least four of them with these products," Lteif said.

Yogurt is one of the hottest categories of the food market, stoked by the success of Greek yogurts, which are thicker and higher in protein. Yogurt sales in the US this year will add up to roughly $7 billion, according to the consumer research firm Mintel, an increase of 9 percent over last year - when sales increased by 7.5 percent.

"In the food business, growth of 1 to 2 percent is considered very good, particularly for a mature product like yogurt," said John Frank, category manager for consumer packaged goods reports at Mintel. "This kind of growth is remarkable."

In the US, Dannon and Yoplait, in which General Mills has a 51 percent stake, are by far the dominant players. Dannon has 25.5 percent of the sales in supermarkets, drugstores and mass merchandise stores other than Wal-Mart, and Yoplait is at 26.2 percent, according to the SymphonyIRI Group, a market research firm.But the inroads of brands like Fage and Chobani in driving new sales of yogurt gave PepsiCo confidence that there was room for another brand.

One of the biggest challenges for companies trying to break into the yogurt market is getting shelf space in the dairy cases of grocery stores. PepsiCo, with its vaunted distribution system, already sells its Tropicana juices there and has additional clout with retailers through its Frito-Lay and beverage businesses.Analysts have long said that PepsiCo failed to exploit the Quaker brand, which it acquired in 2000 as part of its shift to more nutritional foods.

"Pepsi has so far mostly refocused unhealthy products to become healthy as opposed to leveraging and expanding the Quaker brand," said Ali Dibadj, a beverage analyst at Sanford Bernstein. "They've missed an opportunity with Quaker in nuts and other healthy products."

Khan's research team has been working largely out of Quaker's old headquarters in Chicago, and its innovations are just beginning to arrive in the market. Many of them are built around dairy, which is becoming a larger piece of PepsiCo's business.

In 2009, it created a joint venture with Almarai, a big Saudi Arabian dairy company, and last year, it completed its purchase of Wimm-Bill-Dann, a large Russian dairy company. The Russian acquisition increased sales of its healthier portfolio of products to about $13 billion annually, and PepsiCo expects that wedge of its pie to grow to $30 billion, driven largely by yogurt and dairy, by 2020.

Last year, for example, a protein the team extracted from milk was added to Gatorade Recovery, which perhaps explains Coca-Cola's recent agreement to distribute a small dairy-based sports drink, Core Power, which is owned by a dairy cooperative.

Quaker this year introduced Real Medleys, a line of instant multigrain oatmeal with added fruits and nuts that can be eaten right out of the container, and Khan said the company could not meet demand for the product.

Such changes have led at least one Wall Street analyst to voice what had been regarded as heresy and spoken only in whispers. "The cola wars have abated," said John Faucher, the beverage analyst at JPMorgan Chase. "Pepsi is now focused on growing all the beverages it sells - teas, juices, Gatorade - and not just selling more carbonated soda than Coke at the expense of profit margins."

Let the yogurt wars begin.

Saras Dairy caught ‘red-handed’ mixing caustic soda in milk

Jaipur/Jodhpur: In its bid to conserve large amount of milk in its plant, Saras Dairy is allegedly adulterating milk with caustic soda. A worker was caught red-handed while mixing the caustic soda in raw milk at Saras Dairy’s milk plant in Basni.

The adulterated milk could have a major impact on blood pressure and sugar levels.

However, the managing director of the company pretended to be ignorant of the activity and immediately removed the employee who was caught red-handed.

Bhaskar Team visited the Saras Dairy plant and encountered that a worker was mixing the caustic soda in the tanker full of raw milk. When interrogated, the worker said he was just performing his duties. He further said that he had received the order from higher officials.

Bhaskar Team was surprised to know that the caustic soda was added in the milk after the samples were sent to the laboratory for test. This was done to avoid any negative report in the lab test.

When asked, the managing director said he was ignorant of such activities in the plant. He immediately sacked the accused, Vishnu, and plant supervisor, Rakesh Kumar.

After this incident, questions are being raised about the quality of 30,000-litres milk as supplied by Saras Dairy. The company allegedly adds caustic soda in order to neutralize the acidity of the raw milk procured from different suppliers.  

1.Source: Business LineLink : http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/article3625089.ece;

Wanted, a fresh strategy for milkB.M. VYASSHARE  ·   PRINT   ·   T+  

We need to discourage export of protein meal, and feed more of it to our cows and buffaloes.

We have all read or heard how, in the past, India was a land flowing with milk and honey.

The country, after all, had some of the best breeds, both of cattle (Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Gir, Kankrej, Tharparkar and Ongole) and buffalo (Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jaffarabadi, Mehsana and Banni), besides also the best cattle breeders in the world.

Moreover, we had tropical weather, reasonably good monsoon, and both rainfed as well as perennial rivers flowing through fertile land mass — all conducive for dairy farming.

Yet, when we became independent in 1947, milk was scarce and beyond our means. What went wrong? For an answer, we need to look at history in a different light, going back to the advent of the British era. That was when a trend of urbanisation around major sea ports such as Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and also the national capital of Delhi gathered momentum.

Destroying genetic wealth

The ever increasing population in these centres generated rising demand for milk, resulting in the setting up of tabelas and khattals — enclosures where cows and buffaloes were reared for milk. Even today, one can, while taking a local train from the north to south of Mumbai, spot a large number of these enclosures alongside the tracks.

The tabela owners, always keen to maximise short-term profits, would bring the best of the high yielding animals from the hinterlands along with their young calves. Once the milk flow was established — which is all that interested them — they would wean away the calf within a week or so and send it for slaughtering.

The animals in-milk, too, would be reared for a few lactation cycles, before being disposed of to the slaughter house as well. The empty slots in the tabela would, then, be filled with the next lot of cattle from the hinterland.

But each time the tabela owners sent the calves for slaughtering, they were also destroying our best genetic stock without appreciating that the ‘calf’ is a future cow. This process went on, unchecked for more than a century and not just in Mumbai but in all metros. Over time, it translated into the country losing its best genetic pedigree and being left with milch animals with dismal productivity.

Amul’s advent

This state of affairs — where milk was being produced and consumed in urban India, with government schemes also doing the same — changed with Amul coming into existence in 1946. This was a cooperative owned by farmers producing milk from animals reared in their natural rural environment itself and not brought for eventual slaughtering in the city tabelas.

As the Amul model grew — providing market access and remunerative prices to farmers along with services such as veterinary care, balanced cattle feed supply, artificial insemination and progeny-tested frozen semen — milk production and animal productivity started going up.

For the first time in about 200 years, someone was also trying to stop and reverse the depletion of our precious animal genetic wealth.

Between the mid-1970s and the 1990s, the dairy cooperative movement spread to more than 200 districts of India, with milk production growing at 4 to 5 per cent per annum, from 20 million tonnes (mt) to the current levels of 120 mt. India emerged as the world’s largest milk producer and per capita consumption, too, rose to almost the global average.

If milk production could increase six-fold in less than 40 years, what makes our bureaucrats, sitting in their plush air-conditioned offices in New Delhi, doubt our ability to achieve an output of 200 mt by 2020? It sometimes raises doubts about their real intent: Resorting to milk powder imports and banning export of dairy products is something that comes most naturally to our babus!

Crude protein export

Doubling India’s production over the next 10 years is surely achievable, with better road connectivity, power supply and faster communication infrastructure, and more educated milk producers.

But that requires strategic initiatives in raising milk productivity, where our national institutions have grossly failed.

We have lost valuable time, failing to master modern technologies for dairy cattle genetic upgradation that have been successfully applied in the US, New Zealand, Europe and even Israel, China and Brazil. What would take decades through earlier technologies such as progeny testing can be achieved at much less time and cost today using advanced genetic engineering tools.

It is high time a special mission is created to spearhead deployment of genetic engineering tools for supply of pre-sexed, high pedigree frozen embryos and semen of proven bulls from our indigenous breeds such as the Gir, Kankrej, Sahiwal and Murrah.

Also, we need to revisit the policy of exporting millions of tonnes of soya, cotton-seed and rape-seed meal, all of which contain 30-40 per cent high-quality crude protein. If these are fed to our cows, buffaloes or poultry, they would be converted into highly digestible protein that our children and women need most.

It is often argued that export of meal brings in valuable foreign exchange, but the reality is that most of it gets spent again on import of pulses! Now, I am not anti-

globalisation or liberalisation, but exporting crude protein and importing pulse protein just doesn't make sense.

At affordable prices

My point is, we must make our fodder and feed resources at an affordable rate for our animals first, which is what the Government earlier did by imposing a 20 per cent levy on export of protein meal.

Reinstating this will not affect our oilseed farmers, who are hurt more by the country importing massive volumes of edible oil at negligible import duty.

If well-managed, the next couple of decades can become a golden era for India’s milk production and cattle productivity gains, especially with a young population growing hand-in-hand and powering a market for milk and value-added dairy products. Meeting this demand by importing is an unsustainable proposition.

If we want our countrymen to be strong, tall, healthy, smart, and to live for 100 years, we need more milk at affordable prices. Not right-for-food or rural employment guarantee schemes!

Resorting to milk powder imports and banning export of dairy products is something that comes most naturally to our babus, who seem least concerned about the well being of the dairy sector.

(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated July 11, 2012)

2. Source: NY Times

Link : http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/got-milk-you-dont-need-it/?

ref=dairyproducts

GOT MILK? YOU DON’T NEED IT:

Drinking milk is as American as Mom and apple pie. Until not long ago, Americans were encouraged not only by the lobbying group called the American Dairy Association but by parents, doctors and teachers to drink four 8-ounce glasses of milk, “nature’s perfect food,” every day. That’s two pounds! We don’t consume two pounds a day of anything else; even our per capita soda consumption is “only” a pound a day.

Today the Department of Agriculture’s recommendation for dairy is a mere three cups daily — still 1½ pounds by weight — for every man, woman and child over age 9. This in a country

where as many as 50 million people are lactose intolerant, including 90 percent of all Asian-Americans and 75 percent of all African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Jews. The myplate.gov site helpfully suggests that those people drink lactose-free beverages. (To its credit, it now counts soy milk as “dairy.”)

There’s no mention of water, which is truly nature’s perfect beverage; the site simply encourages us to switch to low-fat milk. But, says Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, “Sugar — in the form of lactose — contributes about 55 percent of skim milk’s calories, giving it ounce for ounce the same calorie load as soda.”

O.K., dairy products contain nutrients, and for those who like them, a serving or two daily is probably fine. (Worth noting: they’re far more easily digested as yogurt or cheese than as fluid milk.) But in addition to intolerance, there’s a milk allergy — the second most common food allergy after peanuts, affecting an estimated 1.3 million children — that can be life-threatening.

Emily Robertson

\Other conditions are not easily classified, and I have one of those. When I was growing up, drinking milk at every meal, I had a chronic upset stomach. (Channeling my inner Woody Allen, I’ll note that I was therefore treated as a neurotic, which, in fairness, I was anyway.) In adolescence, this became chronic heartburn, trendily known as GERD or acid reflux, and that led to a lifelong Tums habit (favorite flavor: wintergreen) and an adult dependence on Prevacid, a proton-pump inhibitor. Which, my gastroenterologist assured me, is benign. (Wrong.)

Fortunately my long-term general practitioner, Sidney M. Baker, author of “Detoxification and Healing,” insisted that I make every attempt to break the Prevacid addiction. Thus followed a seven-year period of trials of various “cures,” including licorice pills, lemon juice, antibiotics, famotidine (Pepcid) and almost anything else that might give my poor, sore esophagus some relief. At some point, Dr. Baker suggested that despite my omnivorous diet I consider a “vacation” from various foods.

So, three months ago, I decided to give up dairy products as a test. Twenty-four hours later, my heartburn was gone. Never, it seems, to return. In fact, I can devour linguine puttanesca (with anchovies) and go to bed an hour later; fellow heartburn sufferers will be impressed. Perhaps equally impressive is that I mentioned this to a friend who had the same problem, tried the same approach, and had the same results. Presto! No dairy, no heartburn! (A third had no success. Hey, it’s not a controlled double-blind experiment, but there is no downside to trying it.)

Conditions like mine are barely on the radar. Although treating heartburn is a business worth more than $10 billion a year, the solution may be as simple as laying off dairy. (Which, need I point out, is free.) What’s clear is that the widespread existence of lactose intolerance, says Dr. Baker, is “a pretty good sign that we’ve evolved to drink human milk when we’re babies but have no need for the milk of any animals. And no matter what you call a chronic dairy problem — milk allergy, milk intolerance, lactose intolerance — the action is the same: avoid all foods derived from milk for at least five days and see what happens.”

Adds Dr. Barnard, “It’s worth noting that milk and other dairy products are our biggest source of saturated fat, and there are very credible links between dairy consumption and both Type 1 diabetes and the most dangerous form of prostate cancer.” Then, of course, there are our 9 million dairy cows, most of whom live tortured, miserable lives while making a significant contribution to greenhouse gases.

But what about the bucolic cow on the family farm? What about bone density and osteoporosis? What about Mom, and apple pie?

Mom: Don’t know about yours, but mine’s doing pretty well. Apple pie (best made with one crust, plenty of apples) will be fine.

But the bucolic cow and family farm barely exist: “Given the Kafkaesque federal milk marketing order system, it’s impossible for anyone to make a living producing and selling milk,” says Anne Mendelson, author of “Milk.” “The exceptions are the very largest dairy farms, factory operations with anything from 10,000 to 30,000 cows, which can exploit the system, and the few small farmers who can opt out of it and sell directly to an assured market, and who can afford the luxury of treating the animals decently.”

Osteoporosis? You don’t need milk, or large amounts of calcium, for bone integrity. In fact, the rate of fractures is highest in milk-drinking countries, and it turns out that the keys to bone strength are lifelong exercise and vitamin D, which you can get from sunshine. Most humans never tasted fresh milk from any source other than their mother for almost all of human history, and fresh cow’s milk could not be routinely available to urbanites without industrial production. The federal government not only supports the milk industry by spending more money on dairy than any other item in the school lunch program, but by contributing free propaganda as well as subsidies amounting to well over $4 billion in the last 10 years.

There’s nothing un-American about re-evaluating those commitments with an eye toward sensibility. Meanwhile, pass the water.

3. Source: NY Times

Link: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/a-hybrid-approach-to-solar-power/;

A Hybrid Approach to Solar PowerBy MATTHEW L. WALD

Cogrenra: A solar installation at the Clover Stornetta dairy processing plant in Petaluma, Calif.

When photovoltaic cells make electricity from sunlight, they collect a lot of heat along the way. And they don’t work as well warm as they do cold.

Four years ago  I wrote about a hybrid system  that was intended both to make electricity and gather usable heat on residential rooftops. That company, now called  Echo Solar , is offering its product around the country.

But the market for such hybrids goes beyond homes, especially if the second product is hot water, which can make steam and then electricity. Now another company, Cogenra, is supplying a hybrid solar electricity and hot-water system for big apartment buildings, dormitories, retirement homes, wineries, food processing

plants and, most recently, a dairy, all of which use large amounts of hot water. It has 40 installations worldwide.

The basic problem, according to Gilad Almogy, the chief executive of Cogenra, is that a photovoltaic cell captures only about 15 percent of the sun’s energy. Another 5 percent or so reflects back off the solar cell. “Where’s the rest? It’s heat,’’ he said. On a 100-degree day in a sunny location, the cell, which is black, can reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit, he explained.

So his company mounts the cells on water pipes in the center of trough-shaped mirrors. The mirrors concentrate the sun’s energy by a factor of 10. The result is electricity and water that is warmed to as much as 158 degrees. The temperature can be varied, according to the application; water for sterilizing a food processing tank is hotter than water for a shower.

The trough design is not new; it is similar to the one used at solar thermal power plants, which boil water into steam to spin a turbine, turn a generator and make electricity. But in Cogenra’s installations, the water does not reach the boiling point. If it did, the solar cells would not work very well.

As measured by heat content, the bulk of the production is hot water, but the electricity sells at a higher price. The economics vary by location; in most parts of the United States, the value of the hot water is set by the value of the natural gas that did not have to be burned because the solar system did the work instead.

Since natural gas is currently very cheap, the small electricity production may be more valuable. But in Hawaii or India, where fuel to heat the water has to be shipped in, the value of the hot water would be higher, Mr. Almogy said.

If a quantity of electricity is worth four times as much as the equivalent amount of natural gas, then the hot water and the electricity produced by his system have about equal value, he said. At the moment, though, the electricity is worth far more than four times as much, because the price of natural gas is depressed by a surplus brought on by fracking.

The economics of his system works well in California because that state offers a rebate for the installation of renewable systems for heating hot water, he said. The rebate is equal to $12.82 per therm of gas saved in the first year, which is well above what a therm actually costs most consumers at the moment.

While Cogenra’s system starts with the same concept as Echo Solar’s, they are not quite competitors. They are both backed by the same alternative energy investor, Vinod Khosla.