Our biosolutions help enable healthier lives while managing environmental and social impact across the value chain — Anurag Chadha, Director, Food and Beverages Biosolutions, South Asia, Novonesis

Novonesis, committed to drive innovation and deliver impactful solutions for the future of food in India, recently took part in Fi India 2025 to showcase cutting-edge advancements in biosolutions across three key segments, namely baking, dairy and functional foods. Anurag Chadha, Director, Food and Beverages Biosolutions, South Asia, Novonesis, elaborates on  the latest cutting-edge advancements in biosolutions innovations for the food sector, the sustainability measures being adopted and the plans for the Indian market. Edited excerpts:

What is the future of food in India?

In a country like India, we see constant changes in the demands of the consumer. The diversity of consumers and their taste preferences will mean that technology needs to adapt to changing needs. Consumer demand is moving in the direction of healthy, safe, and convenient food options. The growing need to feed the increasing population with changing dietary patterns mandates the need for manufacturers to find healthy and safe ways to meet this nutritional requirement. This would lead to the growth of food fortification. Production efficiencies will also be a key enabler given the soaring raw material prices. Supporting government policies and FSSAI guidelines also help bolster the need to find more healthy and sustainable options, as seen by the nudges towards reducing oil consumption and HFSS content will work towards determining the future of food and accommodating the growing demand of the population.

What kind of latest cutting-edge advancements in biosolutions innovations are currently being conducted for the food industry?

The advancements in biosolutions across cultures, enzymes and probiotics enable businesses to meet their needs while supporting consumer demands and planetary health. Novonesis is committed to extensive R&D that helps shape solutions that help food producers get more from less, enable more efficient and sustainable processing while ensuring great taste, texture and sensorials, or mouthfeel. Biosolutions today can work towards extending shelf life and also towards improving the nutritional profiles of food in terms of protein, fibre, macro/micronutrients from grains, etc.

Our biosolutions help in the reduction of chemical additives, and work to completely, partially remove or replace harmful substances in food such as emulsifiers, additives, acrylamide, fat and sugar. Through fortification, we can also deliver novel health and functional benefits in food in the form of probiotics that improve gut health or vitamins.

Which are your latest initiatives for dairy, baking and functional foods?

In baked goods, our biosolutions can work across baked goods such as cakes, biscuits, bread and khatri to reduce fat by up to 20 per cent. This offers health benefits to consumers and also helps manufacturers tackle rising raw material costs through an optimised, cost-effective solution. In categories like bread and biscuits, we help to offer elevated eating experiences and exceptional sensorial attributes, thereby allowing for premiumisation of products. We can also supplement nutritional needs through added protein of up to 15 per cent in breads. Further, we can build healthier baked goods recipes with the elimination or reduction of chemical preservatives, emulsifiers and oxidising agents, and even the reduction of sugar from recipes. For our customers, our enzymes can enable better processing efficiencies through improved baking time.

In the dairy segment, our solutions contribute across a range of dairy products, including milk, yogurt and cheese.  We help producers get more from the same milk: every batch, every time. The boost in yields for milk producers is a key value proposition. Our probiotic strains (BB12, LGG, LA5) are the most researched and documented – providing gut health & immunity benefits across multiple dairy products like buttermilk and curd. Our specialised cultures help build better textures and remove graininess from products like Greek yogurts, among others. Our biosolutions also help to transform cheese into a functional superfood through fortification and texture improvement. Finally, for dairy, our new initiatives also include high-protein products like yogurt sauces, which are superior in texture and mouthfeel and also offer a great alternative to mayonnaise.

For functional foods, we are working to build a range of functional fermented beverages using traditional and functional ingredients, for example– apple, carrot fermented juices, kombuchas, kefirs etc. Our Vitamin K-2 solutions can offer better bone and heart health. Our HU58 strain is heat-resistant and therefore capable of being added to products beyond dairy, such as baked goods, snacks and even coffee! We also offer solutions for instant tea extraction, which can improve its colour and body.

Can biosolutions reduce food waste?

Sure. The freshness concept in bread through our Novamyl series of products helps in building and retaining softness, moistness, and resilience in bread till the end of shelf life and beyond. Consumer perceptions of bread being fresh for consumption is also driven by texture and sensorial attributes like elasticity, softness, which enzymes can help elevate and thus reduce the need to throw away the bread, reducing wastage.

In the context of our biosolutions for dairy products, they can also work to increase shelf life across products. Globally, we estimate that one million plus tonnes of yogurt have been saved in the past 10 years using biosolutions that can help keep food fresher for longer while maintaining expected taste and texture. It is also estimated that a lot of milk gets discarded owing to antibiotic residues. Our solutions also support quality control by offering testing tools designed to assist in identifying potential issues, thereby contributing to reduced product waste.

Biosolutions also have the potential to generate wealth from waste. For example, seafood is a sector that sees more than 50 per cent of fish produce being dumped, unutilised. Our solutions for waste valorization can help generate high value by products for the seafood sector, ranging from seasoning and condiments to collagen and animal feed.

Have you implemented any sustainability measures?  

Sustainability is at the core of what we do at Novonesis. Our biosolutions help enable healthier lives while managing environmental and social impact across the value chain. We have advocated the need for transformative change. Globally, our biosolutions have worked towards reducing food wastage by increased shelf life and reduced staling in the context of bread and dairy, and also prevented millions of tonnes of CO2 from being generated. In fact, globally, we estimate that over 83 per cent of our sales are documented and aligned with at least one of the six UN Sustainable Development Goals.

 What would be your plans for the India market five years down the line?

We are currently forging a transformative path through innovation that’s driven by science and sustainability. Our goal is to be able to partner with large food & beverage organisations to help build solutions that the consumers would value – superior taste and texture, foods that are naturally familiar (without chemicals), naturally healthy and easy to incorporate into their diets.

Sanjiv Das
Sanjiv.das@mmactiv.com