Living the ice cream dream

Generous with knowledge

Marilyn Tan has been an application technologist at Palsgaard Asia-Pacific for five years and part of its dairy and ice cream team for one. It’s the dream role for someone with a passion for food.

“It’s a really great job because I like to eat!” she laughs. “After high school, I wasn’t into engineering or accounting. Food technology was a very niche topic but making ice cream and getting to eat it is kind of my dream job – I’m still not tired of it!”

She also enjoys being part of a culture that encourages learning: “What I love about working here is that Palsgaard people are generous with their knowledge. We regularly come together to pass on what we’ve learned. And we don’t just want to share our knowledge within the company but also with customers and distributors.”

The big difference we offer is the Palsgaard know-how. It’s very important to us that we understand what our customers need. We don’t just say ‘Ok – try this’ – we do all we can to identify the cause of any problems. For example, if a product is unstable, we try to work out why. Is it the process? Or that the emulsifier dosage is insufficient? Or the use of the wrong product? We work hard to understand the system so we can recommend a solution.

Different cultures, different ice cream

Something else that has helped Marilyn increase her knowledge is the huge diversity of ice cream markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

“There are so many different cultures” she explains. “From Sri Lanka to Pakistan to the Philippines, they all use different ingredients in ice cream. In Australia and New Zealand, there’s more demand for creamy, indulgent, high-end products, and they’re more likely to use animal fats like cream. In South Asia, vegetable fats are more common, partly because they’re more accessible than dairy in those countries, and partly because they’re cheaper.”

A big part of her role is being able to respond to these different needs. “We have to be able to recommend things that suit each particular market,” she says. “We have a wide range of products that cater to what customers need, but we also have to work hard to understand how they work in different systems.”

Integrated ice cream solutions with an extra helping of customer service

Ice cream is essentially an unstable solution of oil and water. The job of emulsifiers is to displace the protein on the surfaces of fat globules, allowing them to come together and form a 3-D network that traps air bubbles. This improves shape and mouthfeel.

“On a day to day basis, we’ll be helping ice cream manufacturers solve common technical challenges,” Marilyn says. Whether they need good meltdown, heat shock stability, shape retention or creamy mouthfeel, we’ll go through our range of emulsifiers and recommend the right one.”

One of the big advantages of the company’s products for ice cream – such as the Palsgaard® ExtruIce and Palsgaard® MouldIce ranges – is that they are fully integrated blends. This ensures an accurate proportion of emulsifiers and stabilisers to be dosed every time, and also allows dust-free handling. They’re not just dry blends so there’s no dusting and there’s a homogeneous ratio between the emulsifier and the hydrocolloids,” Marilyn explains. It’s easier to use because manufacturers don’t need to pre-blend with sugars. They can put them straight into the milk or water so there’s no lumping during mixing.”

However, it’s about the quality of the service as well as the product. “The big difference we offer is the Palsgaard know-how,” she says. It’s very important to us that we understand what our customers need. We don’t just say ‘Ok – try this’ – we do all we can to identify the cause of any problems. For example, if a product is unstable, we try to work out why. Is it the process? Or that the emulsifier dosage is insufficient? Or the use of the wrong product? We work hard to understand the system so we can recommend a solution.”

 

New tara gum blends – Cost-effective, high-performing, lean-label

One of the projects Marilyn and her colleagues have worked on recently is a new range of emulsifier-stabiliser blends that use tara gum as an alternative to locust bean gum (LBG).

“LBG has been common in ice cream for many years, but it’s highly susceptible to price fluctuation, and a lot of manufacturers want to be less reliant on it,” she explains. “We wanted to help customers find an alternative that wouldn’t change their product profile too much. Tara gum came into the picture because it’s from the same family, but the cost is lower.”

Through extensive testing, Palsgaard has found that tara gum performs as well as, or better than, LBG. “Structurally, it’s actually very similar”, she says. “We’ve tested it in a controlled meltdown chamber; the amount of melted ice cream is very small, and the shape retention is excellent. During churning, the product mix is stable, and the over-run is similar to what you get with locust bean gum. We’ve also realised that we can achieve a very low mix viscosity, which is something a lot of customers need.”

The new blends are in line with many current consumer demands ― they are free from PHOs and can be used in vegan products. They also have benefits for manufacturers who want to shorten their ingredient lists. “Another thing that’s good about it is that it only contains two or three E-numbers,” Marilyn says. “Ice cream tends to have a long list of ingredients, so if customers are looking for a leaner label, this is a very good product to introduce.”

The new trends shaping ice cream markets

A big part of Marilyn’s job is studying market trends to identify new product concepts that might be of interest to customers.

Unsurprisingly, 2020 has seen new interest in ingredients associated with immune health. There’s demand for ginger, turmeric and matcha ― even in ice cream. “The idea of those kinds of ingredients is actually really well accepted, as long as the flavours work,” she says. “Also, making ice cream seem healthier is popular because it gives people permission to indulge!”

While eating ice cream may not offer significant immunity benefits, Palsgaard can certainly help manufacturers create products that are better-for-you in other respects. For example, she has recently developed recipes for ice creams that are lower in calories, and one which uses low-GI brown sugar instead of white sugar.

As well as health, another topic coming up more in conversations with customers is the environment – a major focus for Palsgaard, which recently became the first emulsifier producer to achieve carbon-neutral production. “We’re always reminding customers that our products are produced in CO2-neutral facilities,” she says. “That’s definitely a big thing, especially in Australia and New Zealand, where it’s clear that consumers are willing to pay a bit more for sustainability.”

Marilyn says growing focus on sustainability is also a key driver for another huge trend. “More people are going vegan or dairy-free, so we’ve been doing a lot of work on plant-based ice creams. What makes that interesting is that there are so many sources of plant-based ‘milks’ ― almond, rice, coconut for example.

I’m quite sure that the plant-based trend will be here for many years. But a few years ago, who knew it would be so big? That’s one of the things I enjoy. Every day there’s a new trend ― and a new challenge.”

Would you like the help of Marilyn or her colleagues?