Health | Sustainability
A cultu e of sustainability “It is a good thing I didn’t know what I know now about the yoghurt business, when I started out 23 years ago”
You can ferment yoghurt in around five hours - most brands do. Cyclops yoghurt is fermented for a minimum of 12 hours. Combined with elevated levels of milk solids it produces yoghurt with high titratable acidity and exceptional pro-biotic bacteria counts.
says Jim Small, founder and CEO of Serra Foods, makers of Cyclops Organic Yoghurt. “Otherwise I might have used my law degree in a more conventional way”.
From the start Cyclops packaging set the standard for durability and ease of reuse. “We have always recycled as much as possible” Small says.
More importantly, not knowing how conventional dairy companies worked meant Cyclops was just naturally different.
A special adhesive on the labels makes them easy to peel off the pots, which can be reused as fantastic, multi-purpose containers.
No one had put yoghurt in clear containers before and certainly no one had taken the trouble to set the yoghurt and then put the flavour on top!
Cyclops has never done ‘me too’ products and continues to innovate. It was first to market with yoghurt ice cream and more recently its new dessert-style yoghurt ‘Bliss by Cyclops’ has topped blind taste comparisons with other ‘gourmet’ yoghurts.
No other company would be crazy enough to make yoghurt out of batch evaporated fresh organic milk – it’s more logical to just add skim milk powder and starch or gelatine to thicken the milk. Jim’s inspiration for his thick natural yoghurt was the fabulous Greek yoghurt he had eaten on his travels. A name from Greek mythology seemed fitting.
PLASTIC FOOD CONTAINER MANUFACTURERS • Specialising in injection moulded food containers. • 70 containers within a range of 40ml - 1 litre. • Specialising in custom packaging. • Common products include: honey, ice cream, yoghurt, oysters, pesto etc...
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It didn’t hurt that it rhymed with ‘plops’ and ‘dollops’ as well. And if you know about the ‘one eyed’ reputation of Cyclops’ home province you will see the hint of an ‘in’ joke Cyclops embraces a human, artisan method of food production. “Using natural and unprocessed ingredients gives subtle daily variations that our people adjust for on a batch-to-batch basis” says Small. The result is a product that doesn’t just satisfy, it delights.
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Proud to be associated with Serra Natural Foods. 34 | Spring 2011 www.awarenesstoday.co.nz
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At the same time Cyclops Ambrosia, a unique light creamy version of the classic Kiwi dessert, is getting rave responses from customers. Sustainability is an important element of the Cyclops values package. “We calculate the greenhouse gas emissions we produce, and have been purchasing credits to offset emissions since November 2007. Sustainability is central to our business strategy. We are more concerned with the quality of our business than the scale. Bigger is only better if it affords more opportunities for excellence.” Serra Foods commitment to sustainability was recognised when it won the regional and national 2010 Sustainable Business Network mid-sized business Trail-Blazer awards. The company has consistently turned down export business which is based on air-freight. Now it has developed long life systems for fresh yoghurt which allows for low carbon sea-freight transport and is rapidly growing the export side of the business. As Jim Small says, “the culture of sustainability is as important to the business as the exceptional cultured foods we produce.”