AgResearch is a partner in both projects, which are being funded for three years by the challenge and by co-investment from industry partners a2 Milk Company and Miraka.
The a2 Milk project, led by AgResearch’s Dr Matthew Barnett, is aimed at demonstrating the health benefits of a2 milk for people who believe they are intolerant to cows’ milk.
The Miraka project, led by Dr Alison Hodgkinson, will research the natural traits of milk and how they can be maintained in processing to provide benefits such as reducing the risks of allergies developing in children.
Geoff Babidge, managing director of a2 Milk, said the research required human clinical studies and would focus on small intestinal inflammation and associated symptoms.
The aim was to help the New Zealand dairy industry capture a greater share of the most rapidly growing dairy export markets, China and South-East Asia, where there was a high incidence of perceived dairy intolerance.
By the end of the three-year funding term, Babidge said, “we expect to have characterised the benefits of a2 Milk and its products to specific consumer groups from both the clinical and mechanistic perspectives”.
Preliminary work in China, including human studies, demonstrated a significant proportion of milk-intolerant consumers not only tolerated a2 milk but also enjoyed it, he said.
The company was involved in a range of research and development projects in NZ, Australia, China, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Its research was focused not only on a2 milk benefits, but also on how best to harness the goodness contained in dairy.
The company also has technical or development-type projects underway, oriented more to the supply chain than consumers. One of these involves a collaboration with AgResearch.
“We have partnered with a variety of respected institutions in the markets in which we are active and will provide further detail as disclosure and agreements permits,” Babidge said.
The company was significantly increasing its investment in R&D in line with its growth, he said.
It had committed to a minimum $300,000 over the three-year life of the High Value Nutrition Science Challenge project, but was open-minded in terms of allocating further resource as outcomes and opportunities were generated.
Initial meetings had been held about the new Miraka project before Christmas, chief executive Richard Wyeth said, but work was programmed to start in earnest this year.
The research would explore how Miraka could minimally process milk and retain the health benefits for young children, ultimately – all going well – to help prevent allergies.
“If we can show we can gently process milk and prevent allergies, there would be significant commercial gains not only for Miraka but also for New Zealand in terms of the technology,” Wyeth said.
Pushing products up the value chain had been a key strategy for the company since its establishment, he said.
The company had worked with AgResearch on several projects, one of them resulting in an innovative milk pasteurising process.
It was now looking at how it could retain as many of the natural properties in milk as possible through a natural pasteurisation process to benefit young consumers with allergies, Wyeth said.
A key criteria for the funding was that projects must have “a significant amount of science stretch”.
Miraka believed there was enough evidence to suggest the qualities of milk could be beneficial in dealing with allergies, but Wyeth cautioned: “To say it’s going to be a fait accompli – no”.
The company was involved with AgResearch in a primary growth partnership project, after being granted co-funding of $1.75 million in 2013 for the three-year Whai Hua programme. This aimed to develop natural probiotic dairy milk products targeting health-conscious consumers in Asian and New Zealand markets.
The other Whai Hua partner was the Wairarapa Moana Incorporation, which ran 10,000ha of dairy and forestry operations in the central North Island.
This project was coming to an end, but Wyeth wouldn’t give details on the commercially sensitive outcomes.
Last year Miraka got Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment funding for a project led by AgResearch and involving Plant and Food Research in developing new scientific knowledge and technology for manufacturing UHT milk products which contained plant or vegetable materials.
Miraka doesn’t disclose how much it spends on R&D but Wyeth said it was a strong part of its strategy “and we will invest what I would call significant sums of money in developing dairy-based products that offer health benefits to our customers”.
