NEW ZEALAND – New Zealand dairy producer Fonterra has introduced a new butter product to meet the exacting demands of the Middle East manufacturers.
The new white butter product has been introduced to meet the needs of a niche segment of manufacturers who prefer white butter as a processing ingredient for their food products in the region.
Fonterra’s Dairy Foods Category Director of NZMP, Casey Thomas, said Fonterra seized an opportunity to respond to customer needs by developing a high quality white butter ingredient through an innovative manufacturing process where they are now able to reduce the golden appearance of the butter without impacting its quality.
Although Fonterra’s butter is renowned amongst Middle East consumers for its famous golden appearance thanks to grass fed cows, these Middle Eastern food manufacturers have traditionally sourced butter from grain fed cows, which produce dairy products with a pale colour.
“While our yellow butter already sees great success in this market, we saw an opportunity to tap into this new area for customers to use in a variety of applications such as spreadable jar cheese, recombined cream cheese, and could soon be used in ice cream.”
NZMP General Manager of Middle East and Africa Santiago Aon said, “This innovative approach is already seeing strong results.
Our customers have had positive feedback about the white butter – it is performing to our expectations as a high quality ingredient for food businesses across the Middle East region.”
The product is now available in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Turkey and Pakistan. Future plans include launching the product in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and even South America.
January 19, 2017
