DuPont Nutrition & Health has opened a new technical service center in Kiev, Ukraine, to optimize starter culture performance in fresh fermented dairy production.
Yogurt and other fresh fermented dairy products are important drivers of the dairy market in Eastern Europe, as Euromonitor International expects value sales will grow 6% a year up to 2018.
The center will focus primarily on issues related to bacteriophages.
These viruses impact the acidification performance of yogurt starter cultures and are a common cause of production failures or product quality issues.
The center will also work with basic microbial analyses.
“Efficient strategies against bacteriophage development are essential to ensure stable batch-to-batch production and premium quality products,” says Dmitrij Shulmeister, sales director SAFI South-Eastern Europe & Balkans.
“In addition to routine analyses of customers’ product samples, our application specialists can identify the optimum starter cultures for use in rotary combinations and provide prompt assistance when bacteriophage issues arise.”
The company has similar technical service centers in place in France, China and the US.
