Fonterra to offer ‘richer, sweeter’ mascarpone to Japanese market

Form:FoodBev Media

Fonterra is to launch a new type of mascarpone in Japan, specifically designed to meet the needs of the company’s ingredients customers.

The recently commissioned mascarpone line at the cooperative’s Te Rapa site will bring a new offering to Fonterra’s portfolio of exported ingredients, amid ‘growing global demand for dairy’.

As project manager Shane van den Hurk explained, the new kind of soft cheese is different to the mascarpone that many consumers will be familiar with.

“The mascarpone you find in most supermarket chillers is made to be balanced – slightly sweet, a bit creamy, but with a relatively low fat content so it’s good for ready-to-eat consumption.

“Our ingredients customers, on the other hand, are looking for something that packs more of a punch. When used as an ingredient, a high-quality mascarpone should have much more depth of flavour; it should be richer, sweeter and with a higher percentage of natural dairy fats.

“That’s what gives a milkshake its creaminess and what makes ice creams more decadent.”

Fonterra will launch the mascarpone in ‘rapidly growing’ Japan, where dairy consumption – particularly that of ice cream, which was traditionally considered a treat only for children – has increased. The emergence of premium ice cream brands has seen growing demand for ice cream among adult consumers, with recent Euromonitor data showing sales of ice cream reaching record levels in 2015.

The $5 million mascarpone project means that more milk will be driven up the value chain without building a dedicated new plant, van den Hurk added.

“We’ve been able to apply existing technology in a creative way that allows us to switch our frozen cream line, where we’ve got capacity, over to mascarpone quickly and easily,” he said.

“Much of that milk was previously turned into commodity products such as anhydrous milk fat, so it’s a win-win that we’re about to add significantly more value to our farmers’ milk for a small investment.”

The first major shipment of mascarpone is set Japan in January 2017.

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