Innovative Formulation Approaches; Effects of Milk Consumption on Cancer; Face-to-Face: Meet Robert Roberts

Formulation Approaches, Consumer Insights to Mitigate High Ingredient Costs
As ingredient costs increase, food and beverage manufacturers are being challenged to mitigate the impact of rising costs while still providing label acceptance and an enjoyable eating experience. This webcast will first analyze the topical issues affecting ingredient commodity markets and the effect these issues have on product development. It will help food scientists and product developers acquire an understanding of the current ingredient commodity market, identify relevant trends and potential headwinds that cause challenges in their product development and formulation projects. Furthermore, the webcast will highlight consumer perceptions of product labels to help food and beverage marketers better research true consumer needs and better understand the difference between what consumer say (perception) and what consumers do (behavior) when it comes to product ingredients. Lastly, the webcast will focus on using specialty grain-based ingredient and sweetener solutions to help manufacturers mitigate rising formulation costs, while retaining product eating quality.

Face-to-Face: Meet Robert Roberts
In this month’s Face-to-Face series, we will be introducing you to Robert Roberts, Professor and Head of the Dept. of Food Science at Pennsylvania State University. Roberts had served as Interim Head of the Penn State Dept. of Food Science since May 2012, and was just recently named to the post on a permanent basis. His research focuses on the quality of fermented dairy products such as yogurt and sour cream, development of molecular techniques to characterize and enhance survival of probiotic bacteria used in dairy products, and evaluation of the influence of delivery matrix on the clinical efficacy of probiotic bacteria. Read IFT’s Face-to-Face interview with Roberts to see where the future of dairy research is headed.

Effects of Milk, Milk Products Consumption on Cancer
Milk is considered to be the only foodstuff that contains nearly all of the different substances known to be essential for human nutrition. In terms of cancer risk, dairy foods have been reported as both protective and occasionally as harmful. An article in the May issue of Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety reviews the potential of milk and milk products to inhibit different cancer risks. Also reviewed are the reports over the years that have suggested milk and the dairy industry as responsible agents for causing cancer. The review finds that the proven health benefits of dairy foods greatly outweigh the unproven harm.

Wellness 13 Digital Library
Were you unable to attend the Wellness 13 Conference this year? You may have read the article covering the event in last month’s issue of Food Technology magazine and want to know more. You can access all of its content through the Wellness Digital Library, sponsored by McDonald’s. The Digital Library gets you access to the opening general session recordings (nearly 4 hours of sessions) and PDF files of all presentations (nearly 50 individual presentations). View a sneak peak of the presentations you will have access to at ift.org/wellness. The Digital Library is available for $249 and IFT members receive a $50 discount. And if you did attend Wellness 13 but were unable to see everything, you get free access to the Digital Library with your conference registration.

Kelly Hensel
Senior Digital Editor
[email protected]