Significant synergies exist between Valio’s ingredients and licensing businesses whose experts work hand-in-hand to meet customer needs.

In some cases Valio licensing customers may choose to buy ingredients as well as technology, says Veli-Matti Riitamaa, Vice President, Ingredients. “That relationship has become even closer for instance with Valio Zero Lactose™ where a licensee also needs key ingredients. Customers may even buy Valio lactose free milk powder as a starting point for trial marketing prior to licensing our patented Zero Lactose™ technology.”

Partnerships grow and develop

Valio licensing partners such as Maeil Dairy Industry Company Ltd, which licenses Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (ATCC53103) and Zero Lactose™ technology from Valio, and Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co. Ltd, a licensee for Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (ATCC53103), are also significant buyers of Valio ingredients including Valio DEMI™ demineralised whey powders for infant formula products.

Valio DEMI™ 70 and DEMI™ 90 are popular and well respected infant food industry ingredients and customers set the very highest and most challenging standards for their suppliers. As one of the top three suppliers to the Chinese infant formula business, Valio’s reputation is matchless.

Valio DEMI™ 40 & DEMI™ 50 powders can be found in global brand confectionary products.

Valio ingredients benefit from leading edge process technologies and R&D

Valio boasts the most modern demineralised whey plant in the world, which came onstream in Lapinlahti, Finland towards the end of 2008. The state-of-the-art DEMI™ whey line employs advanced technologies to produce high volumes of unique quality powders.

Valio invested in safety and capacity to provide customers with tailor-made products as each infant formula producer sets requirements for its own unique mineral profile. Strict standards and flexible specifications were in a sense client driven.

In the very long term, the ultimate aim is to produce consumer products made with whey proteins which would be of tremendous value to e.g. the fitness industry and a real benefit to public health in terms of tackling the obesity epidemic currently seen in the West.

What’s the best way to make demineralised whey powders?

Valio whey is derived from the production of Edam, Emmental and Havarti type cheeses whose mild flavour is perfect for making Valio DEMI™ whey powders. All the milk used to produce our cheese comes straight from Valio owner cooperatives’ dairy farms and is traceable back to those farms within a matter of hours. As one of the world’s least polluted countries with few insects and little incidence of vegetable diseases, the levels of heavy metals and pesticides in our milk are the lowest in the EU and Finland’s cool climate also promotes bovine health.