Americans are in love with snacking. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported 21 percent of Americans get their daily calorie intake from snack foods and beverages. Within the snack category as a whole, healthy snacking is showing above-average growth as consumers are choosing snack products that have healthy attributes.
For manufacturers looking to capitalize on this trend, extruded whey crisps provide a novel way to boost protein content in snacks, food bars, cereals and a surprising variety of unique applications. These delicious crisps, available in protein levels from 50 percent to 80 percent, offer an alternative to traditional crisps and granola or can be used to complement lesser quality proteins, such as plant proteins, to provide optimum nutrition in everything from healthy kids' snacks to protein-powered breakfast cereals. Whey crisps are also ideal for special diet foods such as those for gluten-intolerance and Celiac disease. Celiac disease is believed to affect 1 in 133 Americans. (REF: Alessio Fasano, MD, et. al., Arch Intern Med. 2003;163:286-292)
Dedicated to improving human wellness with whey protein, Hilmar Ingredients teams up with whey crisp and extrusion expert, Zumbro River Brand (ZRB) and with process engineering and project management consultant, XIM Group in this Webinar. Learn the art of extrusion from Brad Strahm, principal with XIM Group, and the wide-range of extrusion options from Pam Sander, president of ZRB. Hilmar Ingredients' manager of applications, Grace Harris, and director of marketing, Gwen Bargetzi, will help you discover the formulation and marketing advantage of whey crisps in snacks, food bars and cereals.
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What better start for a native Californian than working in the wine industry? Grace Harris began her career with positions in quality assurance and enology at the grand masters of wine—Beringer, Mondavi and Christian Brothers. Her expertise in chemistry and analysis was key for New Zealand Milk Products, now Fonterra, who recruited her for their lab team in 1990. As senior food scientist with Fonterra, Harris focused her efforts on development of new functional proteins and nutrition bar technology. Harris was instrumental in furthering the use of sensory testing in better-for-you foods and evolving the pilot plant facilities to reflect commercial environments. In 2001, Harris joined Proliant Dairy Ingredients, which was purchased by Hilmar Cheese Company in 2004 and became Hilmar Ingredients. Now Hilmar Ingredients' manager of applications and business development, Harris is respected for her formulation expertise and talent as an educator. Nestle, Kellogg, Danone and many other companies have enlisted her guidance for their new or reformulated products. Harris has a bachelor's degree in agricultural science from Fresno State University and is a member of ADPI, IFT and the American Association of Candy Technologists. Called on to give technical presentations at industry conferences around the world, Harris is also a gold-plated frequent flyer. Her most recent tour included stops in Dubai and Paris.
With a passion for persuasion, Gwen Bargetzi has been managing the marketing function in various industries for more than 20 years. Her tenure with New Zealand Milk Products brought clarity and direction to the company's brand ambitions and when NZMP became Fonterra in 2000, Bargetzi assisted with the evolution. In 2002, Bargetzi was recruited by Armstrong Associates, NZMP/Fonterra's California-based advertising agency, to take on the role of executive-level planner for clients' marketing communications. While there, she worked with a range of agency clients, including Mumm champagne brands, Allied Domecq/Beam's New Zealand-based wines and Dairy Farmers of America. When Hilmar Ingredients was formed by Hilmar Cheese Company in 2004, Bargetzi took on the new company's marketing planning and came onboard as Hilmar Ingredients' director of marketing in early 2005. Bargetzi is an alumni of California State University, Sacramento with a bachelor's degree in history. An advocate of good exhibiting, Bargetzi served two terms as the peer-elected chairman of the Exhibitor Advisory Committee for the IFT Annual Food Expo. She also believes in the power of protein nutrition and currently serves on the Health & Wellness Committee, part of DMI’s Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.
Pam Sander has developed and manufactured food ingredients for more than three decades at GPC, Zumbro, IFP and Zumbro River Brand. In these capacities, she has worked extensively on the development and agglomeration of whey-based sports beverages and a variety of food ingredients, including instantized hydrocolloid gums, maltodextrins and proteins. Pam was co-owner of Zumbro and IFP and following the sale of these companies, helped to redirect the focus of her third company, Zumbro River Brand (ZRB), into extrusion and packaging of snacks and cereals. Since today's on-the-go consumer appreciates the convenience of nutrition bars and because crisps play a prominent role in giving these bars desired crunchy texture, ZRB has focused on the development high-protein whey crisps for this market. Sander is currently president of ZRB, which operates two contract extrusion and packaging plants. Her master's and doctoral degree’s from Harvard are in biochemistry and she is an author of eight patents on protein hydrolysis.
Brad Strahm is a principal with The XIM Group LLC, a product and process development firm located in Sabetha, Kan. The XIM Group specializes in food processing with an emphasis on extrusion and related processes and provides project management, product development, equipment engineering and process engineering services to the industry. Prior to forming The XIM Group, he was a 12-year employee of Wenger Manufacturing, a global supplier of extrusion and drying processing equipment. He earned his doctoral degree in business administration from Kennedy-Western University. Also, he earned a master's and bachelor's degrees from Kansas State University in agricultural engineering with an emphasis in food process engineering and food science. Strahm has presented extrusion and related processing topics at numerous seminars and short courses. In addition, he has authored a number of technical articles and book chapters covering various aspects of the extrusion process and material properties.