Applications and examples from the organic food processing industry

Alexander Beck

6.1 Overview

The organic food market is not only one of the fast growing markets in the food sector, but also one of the most innovative. An impressive number of new raw materials, technologies and new products have been introduced during the last 20 years in the organic food sector. This innovative sector also gave substantial impulses to the conventional food sector in Europe.

A number of companies have over 40 years experience with organic food processing. The very first start of these activities is estimated to have taken place approximately 80 years ago. For example the Japanese thinker George Ohsawa and the Gevaert family founded the firm “Lima” in St. Martens Latem, Belgium, in 1957. Ohsawa considered a balanced nutrition to be one of humans’ fundamental needs, and placed a high importance on it. He developed a “nutrition school/school”, macrobiotics, which was able to fulfil those needs. Lima therefore concentrated its activities on the cultivation and preparation of organic food (www.limafood.com).

Interestingly already in the seventies,

a number of companies in different European countries were founded for the purpose of processing organic food. Many of these pioneer companies were successful and are nowadays medium size actors of the market. On the other hand a growing number of middle size companies from the conventional food sector are nowadays producing organic products. In Germany 3414 companies were processors of organic foods in December 2003 (Bundesanstalt Landwirtschaft und Ernährung, BLE 2004).

6.2. Award for innovative organic food processors

For the purpose of this literature review it is interesting to have a look at practical applications at the company level.

In the year 2003 the German Ministry of Consumer Affairs and agriculture granted an award for „organic food processing“ for the first time (Gottwald 2004).

The “award” was conceived so as to cope with the holistic concept of organic food. This new award thus focused on 5 dimensions, which should reflect the most important issues for companies working in the organic food sector.

1. Technology and methods

Processing methods, recipes and technologies, which aim at protecting or improving the product quality or which are adapted to the needs of organic products in particular.

76 Literature Study Organic and “Low-Input Food” Processing 2. Raw materials and primary production

Activities which help organic agriculture to introduce main raw materials successfully in the market. Or cooperation between farmers and processors which results in new, profitable and useful organic agriculture methods, raw materials and foods.

3. Marketing

Companies which successfully introduced high quality food, through creative product designs and advertising programs. And companies which worked out new innovative contract systems between farmers, processors and traders or new logistics concepts.

4. Environmental performance of the production and processing plant

This includes the use of sustainable energy, the reduction of energy use, environmental friendly processing technologies, environment-friendly packaging systems and the minimization of waste and emissions.

5 Cultural and social contributions

Social activities, which are realized inside as well as outside the company. This includes “fair trade” concepts or activities which are related to the cultural activities of the companies (external and internal). The design of the award demonstrates clearly that the processing of organic food should be done within a holistic approach, which includes besides aspects such as technology or innovation in marketing, also cultural, social and environmental ones. A condition for reaching the main award was to demonstrate that an extraordinarily result was achieved in two dimensions at least.

The first winner of this award was chosen because of the overall concept of sustainable management of his company and the close cooperation with its suppliers, the farmers. This company produces a lot of the energy thanks to the use of renewable resources and alternative concepts. Furthermore the company has developed different technologies: for example a special technique for filtration, which reduces the waste to a minimum. Silicon dioxide is totally replaced by cellulose fibres. The “waste” can be composted or used as animal feed. The company presents each year a very detailed and deeply documented sustainability report. (www.lammsbraeu.de)

The second winner of the award has developed completely new techniques for rapeseed oil. This company started with a young and ambitious project directly out of the university. The rape seeds are peeled before the pressing. The whole industrial plant is independent from external energy and is even producing electricity for the public grid, by using the oil of the rape hull to fuel a block heat and the power plant. The end product, that is the rape oil, is of the highest quality and of much better taste and composition than the available cold pressed rape oils on the market! No further refining is needed. (www.teutoburger- oelmuehle.de)

The third winner was chosen mainly because of his pioneer activities in the market for organic meat products. This was the result of the excellent new style of cooperation between farmers, butchers and trade partners in combination with consequent organic food processing methods. For example, all sausages and meat products are free of nitrate. The innovative system of distribution was seen as an important factor of success. (www.chiemgauer-naturfleisch.de).

Literature Study Organic and “Low-Input Food” Processing 77 The first company was influenced mainly by the macrobiotic approach to nutrition. They brought that new style of nutrition in direct relation with organic agriculture. The nutrition style was strongly orientated towards traditional specific Asian foods, which are also used in the macrobiotic nutrition. As for the second company, the most important points were their responsibility towards the environment and their regional approach. Furthermore this company is also a very good example of an ambitious new technological approach exactly adapted to the needs of the organic food sector.

The third example makes clear that the social style of cooperation is a key issue to develop the market, by giving fruits such as new concepts or even sometimes new products. The close cooperation between processors and farmers, based on new economical concepts, was the fundament of their success.

6.3. Examples of novel technologies in the organic food industry

Many novel technologies were developed by companies specifically for the organic market. Indeed important innovative findings, resulting from the discussion in the organic sector were carried out by the organic food industry.

Table 7: Some selected examples for innovative solutions in organic food processing Problems Solutions

Naturalness of foods Methods for cold pressed oil and the protection of the oils against oxidation. (Use of peeled seeds, the “oxygard” method and others.)

Use of flavours Development of new tasty varieties of fruit yoghurts without added isolated flavours by new innovative blends and e.g. by the fresh production of the fruit preparation directly in the dairy plant.

Whole cereal bread bakery products with a good volume

Use of new methods of production, addition of acerola cherry powder (instead of synthetic ascorbic acid) or oxygen (O2) application.

Problems of using ion exchange resins in starch syrup.

Develop purification systems based on accepted processing aids

Homogenization of milk Reduce the level of homogenization to the possible minimum by avoiding unforeseen homogenization effects and by reducing of the application of pressure to the minimum as it is needed for pasteurized milk.

Oxidation of potato’s after peeling

Use of organic acids as antioxidants and optimization of handling and packaging.

Quality of meat products Development of new processing technologies based on meat from “older” pigs and presents a new type of product on the market with new ripening technologies. Problems with conventional

starter cultures

Development of starter cultures which are multiplied on substrates from organically produced compounds

Pest management in storage and processing facilities

Concepts for ecological pest management in combination with new physical and biological control methods / elimination techniques.

Another interesting approach can be observed on the market. Some companies put or have put products with raw material coming from organic agriculture on the market without any organic labelling. They do so because they want to support organic agriculture or because they want to present healthy foods to their consumers. They do not label their products because they are of the opinion that in their special markets, the consumers will react negatively to such a labelling. They believe that if organic raw materials are used some consumers will recognize the products because of their good quality, and will prefer such products

78 Literature Study Organic and “Low-Input Food” Processing in the future. It seems that this concept is sometimes working. The aim of those companies is to contribute to the development of organic agriculture and to a healthy nutrition.

Other companies try to emphasize strongly the relationship between consumers and farmers. On the label of their cereal products, each single farm on which the grain used for the product was produced is mentioned. One of these companies has introduced a system, in which the consumer has to pay a percentage of the costs of organic plant breeding activities. In other product groups such as meat products it is today the normal procedure for small companies to declare exactly from which animal and which farm the meat comes from.

The economic structure of the market for organic foods is reasonable. For small and middle class companies especially, which have a more flexible production system the market for organic foods remains very interesting! Therefore many of those companies in whole Europe try to develop organic production lines with the goal of reaching an appropriate share of this market, which promises attractive margins for the processors. Some of these companies were so successful that they completely converted to organic food production. The biggest organic food processor is the company “Hipp”, originally from Bavaria in Germany, but nowadays located in different European countries.

6.4 Conclusions

The observation of recent developments in the organic food market and the briefly described examples lead to the following conclusions:

The issues about nutrition are an important source of activities for companies acting in the organic food market. Environment-friendly production systems are the next most important aspect. Working together with farmers is not only a key issue for success; it is a part of a social concept too.

Developing technological methods which are adapted to the needs of organic food production, to healthy styles of nutrition and which relate to the “naturalness” of food by limiting the use of the additives are the next aspects to consider.

Finally some processors of organic food try to emphasize the relation from the consumers to the farmers. They want to restore its identity to the food.

The following statement summaries the practical situation: “The industry’s main task is to take the raw material from organic origin and transfer it to the consumers in the form of well recognized attractive products without destroying its original quality, result of the organic farmer’s work.”

Relevant questions to be discussed:

ƒ What are the key responsibilities of organic food processors?

ƒ What is the most critical problem in relation to the processing of organic food?

ƒ How could the processors contribute to the maintenance of a consistent growth rate in the organic market? ƒ What do customers understand under the concept of regionality?

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