With increased consumer interest in plant-based foods and sustainable nutrition, Kerry, is one of the leading sustainable nutrition companies, is investing to meet market demands. İnanç Işık, the Middle East, Turkey and Pakistan General Manager of Kerry talks to Food & Ingredients International Magazine.
Could you describe the general activities and operations of Kerry in Turkey, Middle East and Africa regions?
Our Purpose is to Inspire Food, Nourish Life. We are a global leader in Taste and Nutrition – currently reaching over 1 billion consumers around the world with our food, beverage and pharma solutions.
We have an extensive breadth of technology capability across our ingredients portfolio and we have depth of technical & applications expertise, with over 1,100 scientists across our global footprint.
This foundation allows us to continually inspire great tasting food and beverage products – whether that be new flavours, cleaner and healthier labels or adding clinically-backed functional nutrition.
Nourishing Life is about sustainability. We are driven to improve the overall food system and to deliver a better overall impact for the planet. Our range of solutions helps reduce food waste and the carbon footprint of final products right across the various stages of the supply chain.
Our business today is run with 152 production locations in 36 countries, and over 22,000 employees around the world. With presence in more than 50 countries, we are able to meet the specific local needs of our customers in their markets. This year we opened new food manufacturing facilities in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and in Durban, South Africa to better serve the needs of customers across the region. We already had a strong region footprint but this helps to support the growth of local food manufacturers.
Taste Ingredients and flavours is a sector where many manufacturers throughout the world operate business. What makes Kerry innovative and different?
We look beyond ingredients and flavours and focus on health and nutrition centred on four key areas: plant-based alternatives, food protection and preservation, authentic taste and proactive health. We listen to consumers and after great taste, which is always the priority, they want healthier food with clean labels.
Our leading consumer insights, global RD&A team of 1,100+ food scientists and extensive global footprint enable us to solve our customers complex challenges with differentiated solutions. At Kerry, we are driven to be our customers’ most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition, and will reach over 2 billion consumers with sustainable nutrition solutions by 2030.
How does Kerry help customers invent new foods and flavours?
Customer briefs often start with market research to validate the flavours, textures and expectation for each market. Snack and beverage flavours vary from country to country, and what will taste great to a customer in Egypt may not taste great to a customer in Turkey. We help to first identify the flavours that are of interest, then our food scientists work with customers to co-create a new product using our multi-layered technology approach to bring a new product to market.
Plant-based foods and alternative proteins are gathering speed in the food industry. Edmond Scanlon, Kerry Group CEO, said that alternative proteins will be the biggest driving force of food innovation within next 50 years. How does Kerry contribute to the plant-based foods and alternative protein market? How do you observe changes, challenges and opportunities in this area?
Plant proteins are not only for vegans and vegetarians. Driving the plant-based growth is the flexitarian, a growing consumer group who enjoys both meat and plant-based foods that are trying to cut meat and dairy consumption. But their expectations of plant[1]based alternatives is high as it is based on their experience eating real meat and animal dairy. While they want plant-based alternatives for better health, environmental or societal reasons, they expect them to have taste and texture of meat and dairy products.
Kerry’s rich experience in plant-based products through our expertise in Consumer food (Kerry Foods) is the foundation of our portfolio of plant-based solutions. Taste is the main reason consumers choose one product over another. Delivering good taste has traditionally been a challenge in the plant-based meat category, and one we’ve worked for more than 20 years to help solve. Our global network of flavourists and chefs can support customers build the desired flavour profile in plant protein products, from a traditional meat-eating taste experience to a vegetable-inspired profile.
Kerry’s Radicle™ plant-based food solutions are designed to work together to address common meat alternative challenges and deliver winning plant-based protein products.
Our holistic approach tackles plant protein challenges from field to fork. From plant-based burgers to sausages and nuggets, we use our Radicle™ by Kerry solutions to co-create with customers plant-based meat alternative products with the taste, texture, functionality, and nutrition consumers want. We expect exciting growth.
Where are you seeing demand after the first half of 2022?
In the Middle East region we see strong demand for bakery products and sweets. As consumers look for healthier options after the pandemic, there has been interest in foods and beverages enriched with our BC30 probiotic.
Consumers in Middle East like milk and cheese tastes in their salty snacks and cheese continues to be number one taste in this category. We create healthier and sustainable products with our expertise in milk products, we provide tastes enjoyed by consumers with cleaner labels and lower sodium levels.
You opened the biggest Taste manufacturing site in Africa in May. What are your aims with this investment? Do you consider a similar investment for Middle East Region or Turkey?
South Africa has the integrated production capacity, systems and technology to cater to customer across the continent and into the Middle East. As a greenfield project, with 10 000m2 in factory buildings, Hammarsdale increases Kerry SA’s output capacity by 40%, across 4 different technologies, including Dry Blending, Liquid Flavour Blending, Spray Drying, Reaction Flavours. In January we expanded our manufacturing site in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and continue to invest in our other sites including Sohar, Oman and Tuzla, Turkey.
