Food & Flavour
Acrylamide reduction: Orkla and Renaissance BioScience expand yeast partnership

Orkla Food Ingredients and Renaissance BioScience Corp have agreed to expand their license agreement for Orkla to exclusively manufacture and sell Renaissance’s acrylamide-reducing yeast, Acrylow, to food manufacturers in additional new markets in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The agreement builds on the initial exclusive agreement implemented in Q317 that covered the Nordic and Baltic regional markets in Europe.

Thore Svensson, Senior Vice President of Orkla Food Ingredients, commented: “Since we finalized our agreement with Renaissance last year we have conducted several commercial trials, all of which have shown excellent results and successfully launched the product for sale in the Nordic markets. As the European regulatory structure governing the acrylamide content of many food products and coffee comes into force within a few months, Orkla is pleased to expand its agreement with Renaissance to include Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in order to make Acrylow available to food manufacturers in those countries.” 

Acrylamide is a substance that is formed during high-temperature and low moisture processing of foods that contains starch, such as breakfast cereals, baked goods and snacks. Due to the suspected toxicity of the substance, acrylamide levels in food have been subject to debate and discussion. European regulation establishing benchmark levels for reduced presence of acrylamide in food was establshed in November 2017, and will come into force on 11th April 2018, affecting potato-based products, bread and bakery wares, cereals, coffee and coffee substitutes, as well as baby food.

The new rules have an impact on, and may require changes to, the current production process of these products. Renaissance’s acrylamide-reducing yeast, Acrylow, therefore has potential to be an important ingredient to help food producers meet the benchmark levels that will follow from the new legislation.

Dr Cormac O’Cleirigh, Chief Business Development Officer for Renaissance BioScience, said, “It’s gratifying to see that Orkla and its food manufacturer customers have found our acrylamide-reducing yeast to be effective and easy to use in trials with no sensory impact on the finished product. Orkla is a leader in food quality and safety, and Renaissance is pleased to be partnering with the company to bring Acrylow not only to the already licensed Nordic and Baltic markets but also to these new central European markets.”

Acrylow has shown good results in large-scale industrial trials in baked goods and snack foods, as well as in lab-scale tests in French fries, chips and coffee. This yeast was granted GRAS status by the US FDA in 2016 – the same status as conventional baker’s and brewer’s yeasts. It is patent-pending and was developed using classical non-GMO techniques. 

Orkla Food Ingredients is a division of Orkla,s a leading supplier of branded consumer goods and concept solutions to the grocery, out-of-home and bakery markets in the Nordics, Baltics and selected markets in Central Europe and India. Orkla is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange and its head office is in Oslo. In 2016, the Group had a turnover of approximately NOK38 billion (US$4.8bn), and 18,000 employees at year-end.