News
Recipe for success using 70 years of heritage
NZMP’s Recombined Reference provides customers with knowledge on recombining ingredients and producing exceptional products
07 Aug 2023
3 min
Manufacturers worldwide now make a vast number of dairy applications including beverages, cultured and cheese from recombined ingredients.
Recombination is a process where milk that has been dried into a powder form is reconstituted to return it to liquid. Because the nutritional value of recombined milk is virtually the same as that of fresh milk, recombination creates a convenient way to store milk for later use.
Designed to be a practical guide, the NZMP™ Recombined Reference will benefit customers and their brands by providing expert tips and advice throughout the manufacturing process.
Written by experts from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, the NZMP™ Recombined Reference is a consolidated wealth of knowledge spanning over 70 years’ industry experience.
Broken down into sections that are easy to understand, the Recombined Reference provides a comprehensive insight into the basic principles and processes you need to master to recombine dairy ingredients successfully. It is an expertly written resource that pulls everything into one place, saving time and eliminating uncertainty.
As the dairy ingredients and solutions brand of Fonterra, NZMP has created this reference for our customers and other parties in the dairy industry. Fonterra is a Co-operative owned by over 9,000 New Zealand farming families and is one of the largest dairy exporters in the world. The Recombined Reference is based on scientific sources, Fonterra’s unpublished research and a wealth of experience and expertise in dairying.
With expanded and updated content from reference sources, our experimental results and generations of experience within NZMP, the Recombined Reference has been crafted from a 70 year heritage in dairy.
Recombining milk been around for centuries, with Marco Polo mentioning a similar process in 1295 AD. Throughout time, recombination has been extensively used in South East Asia to produce various forms of recombined milk. With further development of recombined milk product technology through the 1970s and 1980s (and currently ongoing), it is possible to create all traditional dairy products including yoghurts and cheese by recombining.
David Oldfield is a Senior Technologist for Fonterra and one of the experts behind the Recombined Reference. Fonterra has a history of leading innovation in recombining dairy. David believes the manual draws on their heritage of helping and working with customers over many years.
The manual is the keystone or culmination of all our knowledge, background, history and experience. It brings it all together.
David Oldfield, Senior Technologist, Fonterra
Vikas Gaur is a Senior Research Engineer at Fonterra. Vikas was involved in revising the chapters in the NZMP™ Recombined Reference around the reconstitution of milk powders as well as UHT treatment. Vikas believes that while there might be other manuals out there on recombining dairy, they tend to focus on the equipment or process. The Recombined Reference goes beyond that and looks at how the process interacts with NZMP ingredients to produce the best possible outcome.
We have years of knowledge, so many decades of experience, and this is what we have learned. We have a world-leading research institute with 150 odd PhDs, who have a lot of collective knowledge and experience. We understand what the problems in manufacturing are.
Vikas Gaur, Senior Research Engineer, Fonterra
Another contributor to the Recombined Reference is Andrew Legg, Senior Research Technologist within the Fonterra cheese applications team. Andrew believes the manual is important because of the many different applications of recombining including beverages, yoghurts and cheese.
The information obviously exists because the business has over 70 years of industry experience. This is institutional knowledge.
Andrew Legg, Senior Research Technologist, Fonterra
Fonterra’s know-how is world renowned. With its ever-growing range, NZMP has a rich history of working with start-ups and new product development, particularly in markets where liquid supply is constrained. The Recombined Reference is not just for existing NZMP customers, but for all dairy manufacturers in the industry.
Lisa Rutherford is a Principal Research Technologist for Fonterra. Lisa works on research projects and new product development in the protein ingredients and cultured space. Having worked for Fonterra for over 25 years, Lisa believes there is more strategic importance placed on cultured today, with beverages and cultured now regarded as everyday nutrition.
We have at least 20 years’ experience in cultured to share with customers. It’s important to have the Recombined Reference because a lot of knowledge is in people’s heads.
Lisa Rutherford, Principal Research Technologist, Fonterra
Lisa collaborates with her team members and gets her inspiration from some of the more senior researchers and technologists at Fonterra’s Research and Development Centre.
Some of our team members have been here for over 40 years and I’m still learning from them. To solve problems, you need to question everything. And it’s important that we continue to write up all answers we find for the work we do.
Lisa Rutherford, Principal Research Technologist, Fonterra
Backed by over 70 years of rich dairy heritage, the Recombined Reference is an absolute must for both current NZMP customers and other industry brands looking to create exceptional dairy products.
