DSM: Preserving cheese and customer appeal with natural ingredients and packaging solutions

DSM offers a broad portfolio of biopreservation solutions to prevent spoilage and maintain excellent cheese quality.

The global cheese market is growing rapidly – particularly in the retail sector. In fact, Denmark is experiencing a 5% cheese growth in retail value. These figures reflect more than just changing lifestyle factors. Strong consumer interest and significant innovation has lifted the market in recent years, driven by growing preferences for bigger, bolder flavors and better-for-you products.

This presents cheesemakers with an exciting opportunity to expand and diversify their offering to meet rising demands while importantly, keeping production processes as efficient as possible.

As consumers look for cheese products with great tastes and textures that maintain quality throughout shelf life, microbial spoilage remains a key challenge for cheese producers. This challenge is compounded by high cheese loads in warehouses and ventilation limitations, which can accelerate mold growth during the ripening process. This can also lead to increased food waste through spoilage.

Concerns are growing worldwide about food waste – both from an economic production point of view and an environmental concern. Therefore, keeping wastage to a minimum has become a key priority for cheese producers. However, finding a label friendly solution that does not affect taste can be challenging; synthetics like sorbate and benzoate can create off-flavors, while their efficacy is not guaranteed. Traditional ways to combat microbial spoilage, such as using artificial preservatives, are also rapidly losing favor with consumers who prefer more options offering shorter, more recognizable ingredient lists.

Manufacturers are therefore looking for new ways to reduce microbial spoilage during cheese ripening and across shelf life, while maintaining consumer appeal. Additionally, they are keen to improve process efficiencies, increase yield and production speed, reduce ripening time and speed up acidification to further elevate their sustainability positioning and improve profitability.

Choosing the right type of preservation solution is key to maintaining high-quality cheese and reducing food waste. To increase cheese yield while protecting against mold during the ripening process, DSM’s preservative-free and sustainable PackAge® solution enables hard and semi-hard cheese to breathe and develop the great taste and texture associated with a naturally ripened cheese. Meanwhile, DSM’s Dairy Safe™ cultures offer assured protection against late blowing and microbial spoilage, to save producers valuable time and costs.

Additionally, coatings like DSM’s Delvo®Coat and Ceska®Coat are essential components of traditionally ripened cheese. These coatings can increase microbial protection by up to 50% throughout the ripening process and shelf life, even in low-fat and low-salt varieties.

Producers need to stay ahead of the competition and keep up with consumer trends, all while ensuring production processes are as efficient as possible. Partnering with an end-to-end solutions provider, can help cheesemakers both in Denmark and further afield, by providing support from concept to consumer

See more about DSM’s broad portfolio of cheese solutions for all applications at: https:// www.dsm.com/food-specialties/en_US/markets/dairy/creating-better-cheese.html