By producing organic, all-natural fruits and plant-based beverages with sustainably sourced ingredients from around the world, Osterberg Foods seeks to inspire people to choose foods that ensure a healthier and more sustainable future in developing countries.

In a world of constant change we are facing major challenges that concern the environment and global human health. We all have a responsibility to minimise negative impact, and for Osterberg Foods, this means ensuring an increasing number of products fit for future demands with regard to concerns for the environment, human health and social wellbeing.

Locally sourced ingredients supporting farmers economy

Osterberg Foods is developing organic all-natural fruit and plant-based drinks free from added sugar with ingredients from all around the world. By selecting fruits and herbs from mainly developing countries, Osterberg Foods help boost the local agricultural industry where it is most needed.

Osterberg Foods seek for local solutions throughout the supply chain to combat the global challenges, by e.g. involving in a number of fresh fruit processing and farming projects.

The more fruit that is harvested and processed in developing countries, the more work Osterberg Foods generates locally, giving each farmer more financial resources and at the same time creating new business opportunities. A small step to fight poverty and hunger.

“Taste the world” uses fruits from all over the world and boosts local agricultural industries

Product line that supports the Sustainable Development Goals

Osterberg Foods has launched a food service range called “Taste the World” with the focus on using fruits from all over the world and introducing it to the more resourceful parts of the world, like Europe. Using for instance lucuma, guava, baobab and jackfruit requires sourcing the fruits from very specific places in the world. Osterberg Foods especially focuses on the Far East and Africa, where development in the agricultural industry is essential in order to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.

The products are packed and distributed as sustainably as possible, so they can be made available around the world, targeting a broad spectrum of markets. This way, Osterberg Foods aims at making the world a little bit more sustainable every day by producing and selling fruit-based drinks all over the world.

An increasing demand for processed foods are changing dietary patterns across the globe. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), salt reduction has been identified as one of the most effective initiatives to improve the health of the population. For people with a taste for preserved fish products, a number of new salt-reduced products makes it easier to comply with dietary recommendations.

Salt is widely used in seafood preservation because it inhibits the growth of bacteria and increases product shelf life. But this traditional method can come into conflict with the World Health Organization’s dietary guidelines, which recommend that salt intake is less than five grammes a day.

Predictive modelling improves food safety and reduces salt levels

Danish seafood company Royal Greenland and the Technological University of Denmark came together to find a way to cut the salt without undermining food safety or the taste of seafood products.

With funding from the Green Development and Demonstration Programme (GUDP), they developed a mathematical model for predicting the growth of specific bacteria when parameters such as salt content, pH, temperature and preservatives are altered. The project equipped Royal Greenland’s product developers to predict how a change in the recipe will affect bacterial growth in the final product.

the company has been able to cut the salt content of cold-water prawns in brine and pasteurised lumpfish roe by up to 50%

Less salt, same safety – and healthier choices for consumers

As a result, the company has been able to cut the salt content of cold-water prawns in brine and pasteurised lumpfish roe by up to 50%. All the lightly-preserved fish products in the range have acquired the Nordic Keyhole label – a label that helps consumers identify healthier food products.

The predictive models have been published and are now of benefit to the food industry as a whole.

As part of global climate actions, there is an increased focus on how food producers can optimise their production in all processes. Fishery companies around the world face the challenge of finding solutions that can minimise CO2-emissions in terms of farming, processing and transportation while still maintaining a high quality when exporting fresh fish to foreign markets.

Palletising more than one ton of salmon a minute

A Norwegian salmon company has built a new factory in Hirtshals, Northern Denmark containing a huge sorting and packaging facility ready to receive thousands of tonnes of salmon. With solutions from the Danish automation company BILA Automation, the company has succeeded in optimising their sorting and packing process significantly.

Palletising robots packs more than one ton of salmon a minute

Four palletising robots pack 8–12 boxes a minute each, while two other palletising robots can deal with up to a ground-breaking 20 boxes a minute each. In total, this is equivalent of more than one ton of salmon a minute and from here an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) collects the finished pallet and transports it to the warehouse or for shipment.

Significantly improved competitiveness

The combination of maximum capacity and innovative utilisation of existing technology from BILA Automation has helped the Norwegian company to implement a new ground-breaking concept in the salmon industry. The technology has minimised the average time it takes from the moment the salmon-laded ship arrives from Norway to the point in time when the salmon are on their way to customers all over the world.

In addition, the new concept has reduced road transportation – and thereby the carbon footprint – significantly, improved the working environment for employees and minimised operating costs. Overall, the company’s competitiveness has been significantly increased.

The palletising facility can set new standards across the food industry and the concept has already been implemented with major international poultry manufacturers – an excellent example of utilizing technology across multiple industries.

Global life expectancy has doubled over the past century and is now estimated at around 73 years. As populations age, demand is increasing for foods that support active lifestyles, mobility and overall health. This creates a need for protein ingredients with high nutritional value that can be used across a wide range of food categories.

Arla Foods Ingredients, a Danish farmerowned company, specialises in upgrading whey – formerly regarded as a low-value by-product of cheese production – into highquality nutrition for human nutrition. By refining and fractionating whey proteins, the company develops solutions for early-life nutrition, sports nutrition and a growing range of everyday foods where protein functionality and digestibility are important.

Whey proteins improve texture, nutrition and stability

The development of whey-based ingredients has created a new value chain within the dairy sector. Modern processing technologies allow Arla Foods Ingredients to extract and isolate specific proteins with tailored functionality, enabling food manufacturers to design recipes with improved texture, nutrition and stability. Whey proteins are rich in essential amino acids and easy to digest, making them ideal for foods that support active and healthy lifestyles at any age.

By turning whey into a valuable resource, Arla Foods Ingredients reduces waste streams in dairy processing and increases the utilisation of raw materials. In this way, by-products can be reintroduced to the value chain as high-quality nutrition, supporting nutrition and contributing to more resourceefficient production.

In rural Africa, AAK has established a supply chain that sources wild-growing sea kernels. The result is an ingredient that is both sustainable and adds to the income to thousands of West African women. The programme creates a remarkable social impact in Western Africa and provides AAK’s customers with a high-quality fat.

One of the most troublesome issues concerning supply chains in rural Africa is the security of supply as well as providing a secure income for the families involved. Very often, working conditions can be harsh with primarily women facing long walks to fields and parklands and a low, unstable income, not earning enough to alleviate poverty and hunger or invest in children’s education.

Sustainability and profitability walking hand-in-hand

In a project named Kolo Nofaso, the Danish vegetable oil and fat company, AAK, has successfully established a supply chain where they receive sustainable shea kernels while providing a stable income, pre-financing and training to the female workers at the very early stages of the supply chain.

However, the programme is also highly beneficial to AAK and their customers. With Kolo Nofaso, the company gets a fully traceable supply chain of raw material that is crucial to their business.

The programme creates a remarkable social impact in Western Africa and provides AAK’s customers with a high-quality fat

Used in products like chocolate, shea kernels are a sustainable, wild-growing ingredient that requires no land clearing, fertiliser or plantation and is a sustainable alternative to other oils used in these industries.

Receiving honours for its sustainable impact

While the Kolo Nofaso has proven to be a well-functioning programme for AAK, securing a safe supply of shea kernels, the programme has also received awards for its positive effects on the nearby communities.

In 2019, AAK received the Sustainability Pioneer Award for the results the programme has delivered after 10 years in operation. Today the programme is providing a stable income to more than 230,000 shea collectors in Burkina Faso, Ghana and the Cote d’Ivoire while being a good business for AAK.

 

In a globalizing world, Danish companies have proven to be suitable partners for companies all over the planet. In the Philippines, the Danish producer of emulsifiers and stabilisers, Palsgaard, has made positive contribution to a local cake manufacturer. 

In today’s world, companies around the world are seeking the right partners in product development. In this day and age, globalized companies have access to a wealth of knowledge and by creating the right partnership, businesses can take their results to new heights. Danish companies have proven to be very successful partners with their history of collaborative thinking.

Using Danish ingredients to produce Philippine cakes

International collaboration was at the highest level when a large manufacturer of dried noodles and biscuits in the Philippines decided to make the move into the soft cake category. The manufacturer contacted the regional office of Danish emulsifier and stabiliser producer Palsgaard to help with the product development.

Palsgaard pooled the expertise of the technical specialists working in its application centres in Singapore and Denmark. The team then worked with the manufacturer’s product development team to create a new line of Filipino mamon cakes. Palsgaard also advised with the choice of equipment for the production line and the running of production trials.

Today, the cake brand has become one of the manufacturer’s most popular lines – exported all over the world.

Symbolising the Danish status

Danish food companies are some of the most globalized in the world, exporting and making a difference in food production to more than 180 countries around the world. Denmark has a long history of close collaboration between business partners. Collaboration is deeply rooted in Danish business culture – especially in the food industry jobs.

It plays a key role in many of the innovative solutions the Danish food cluster has provided for some of the world’s most complex problems. In Denmark, finding new solutions and relevant knowledge to apply to the world’s biggest challenges can only happen when the various participants in the value chain work together.

The Danish collaborative innovation project, BioFactory, has developed new methods for stimulating and utilising functional substances in plants to meet rising consumer demands for food products without chemical additives.

The global focus on healthy and organic food production has led to a large increase in consumer-demands for products without additives and chemical colourings, as well as increased demands for herbal products and healthy foods as alternatives to standardised medicine. This poses a challenge for food companies to develop solutions where plants can be designed to ensure that their natural content of functional components and colourings is high enough for commercial extraction.

Cross-collaboration towards mutual benefits

The Danish innovation project, BioFactory, used advanced biotechnology in their process of coming up with a solution. Led by the Danish Technological Institute, the project involved ingredient producer Novonesis, the universities of Copenhagen and Southern Denmark and many other representatives from the food value chain. Inspiration came from a growing number of consumers who choose to avoid foods with artificial additives. Many natural alternatives currently exist – such as colourings in carrots and beetroot – but at a level too low to make profitable. During the BioFactory project, scientists successfully developed new methods for identifying and growing plant varieties with a high content of specific functional substances. One approach is to stress the plants during growth by subjecting them to excessive light or drought. This stimulates the plant’s natural defence system, so more of the substances are produced.

Functional substances were seen to increase by up to three times their original concentration during BioFactory’s breeding and cultivation experiments

Scientific findings can lead to new business opportunities

Functional substances were seen to increase by up to three times their original concentration during BioFactory’s breeding and cultivation experiments. In addition to developing carrots rich in carotene and anthocyanins, scientists looked into other substances, which could provide value to natural medicine and healthy food. This includes red clover, which contains a type of oestrogen for relieving the symptoms of menopause; roseroot, containing salidroside and rosavin for the treatment of stress; and hemp, which has shown potential as a treatment for neurological disorders.

A collaboration between the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Aalborg University and five Danish companies has resulted in a new bioinformatics-based method for identifying valuable proteins in industrial side streams.

As the demand for sustainable food production increases worldwide, the industry is seeking ways to utilise raw materials more efficiently and reduce waste across the value chain.

When potatoes, seaweed and other crops are processed into ingredients such as starch, alginate or carrageenan, significant volumes of protein-rich side streams remain. These have traditionally been used for animal feed or returned to fields as fertiliser – practices that overlook valuable components with potential uses in food production. Using modern bioinformatics, the research partners can scan side streams for specific proteins and convert them into functional peptides.

Early work has identified peptide emulsifiers in potato protein, which can be used for encapsulating and extending the shelf life of fish oil – a sensitive ingredient prone to oxidation.

protein extraction increases the value of side streams a thousand-fold

The same approach may reveal flavourings, preservatives and other functional ingredients in a wide range of protein-containing side streams.

Beyond optimising resource use, the method has significant commercial potential. The value of side streams can increase by a thousand-fold when proteins are extracted and
upgraded into high-value food ingredients. Because these proteins originate from familiar raw materials, they also meet consumer demand for naturally functional solutions.

The technology is applicable far beyond potatoes and seaweed and can be used to analyse any protein-rich sidestream, including wastewater from fish processing.

Danish manufacturer, Hamlet Protein, produces high-quality soy proteins used for piglet weaning feed – ensuring easy digestion and low environmental impact.

To solve the global challenge of producing more food for a rising population while also reducing climate impact, more efficient utilisation of resources – including animal feed – is an important step towards a solution

Piglets and other young animals have an immature gut with a limited ability to absorb nutrients. So, if their feed is too hard to digest, the consequences can be severe for their health, growth and feed utilisation. These issues impose serious risks to the farmers who need to produce high-yield livestock with fewer resources and full consideration for animal welfare.

Danish innovation has become a global benchmark

The Danish supplier of speciality feed proteins, Hamlet Protein, began working on a solution to the problem three decades ago. In the early stages of the company’s life, one their innovations became the benchmark for a whole new category of easily digestible, premium soy proteins for piglet weaning feed. Hamlet Protein’s success is rooted in its customised bio-conversion process, which minimises the anti-nutritional factors that compromise the bioavailability of soy protein while keeping the amino acid profile intact. Hamlet Protein produces its high-quality feed ingredients at facilities in Denmark and the USA, using a process with a minimal environmental footprint.

Hamlet Protein produces high-quality feed using its customised bio-conversion process with a minimal environmental footprint

Benefits on both animal welfare and business results

International feeding trials have documented lifelong benefits for animal welfare, growth and performance – at least on a par with the benefits of animal-derived proteins. In terms of feed efficiency, the speciality proteins give farmers an optimum return on investment – ensuring a more sustainable production where less is wasted, and climate impact is reduced.

Consumer perception of fresh meat and poultry is heavily influenced by appearance. Products that lose colour or release liquid early in shelf life are often perceived as inferior and discarded. This contributes to retail and consumer-level food waste – a key barrier to achieving global food waste targets.

To address this, Essentia Protein Solutions develops natural functional ingredients from meat processing side streams, such as pork rind and greaves. These materials are transformed into proteins and pigments that improve product stability and appearance in chilled meat counters. For example, microgranulated meat pigment maintains colour, while functional meat proteins minimise liquid seepage and support shape retention in patties and meatballs.

Turning by-products into proteins that reduce meat waste

By utilising these upcycled raw materials, the company reduces waste at two levels: first, by converting industry side streams into functional food ingredients and, second, by extending the shelf life and appeal of finished meat products, reducing waste due to perceived quality decline. These solutions also support producers and retailers in meeting consumer demand for cleaner label ingredients and greater transparency.

Through enhanced freshness, stable appearance and efficient use of side streams, Essentia’s approach contributes to retail-ready meat and poultry products that reach more consumers and waste less.