Titled Non-Dairy Powders in NZ, the report was released by the Food Innovation Network.
It looked at 15 fruits, vegetables and proteins and as many different drying technologies for turning the by-products or lesser grades into powders.
Non-dairy powdered food products were in high demand worldwide and NZ needed to act quickly to take advantage of an untapped export growth opportunity, it said.
Report co-author Shane Kells of Food Waikato said it was too early to gauge the response from different industries but a workshop at The FoodBowl Auckland had proved popular.
Two things had to happen for the potential to be realised, he said.
The first was a market demand study and selection of the appropriate drying technique followed by concerted industry action, as distinct from a go-it-alone approach by one processor because of the high costs of developing and marketing new products.
The report said “naturally functional” was a strong food trend around the world being used to create new brands and categories and consumers were seeking foods with the so-called “health halo” like coconut water and blueberries.
The health ingredient and functional foods industries in NZ were still relatively small but were expected to play a big role in future.
“Our isolated location provides optimal conditions for producing a wide range of world-class ingredients and natural products based on a safe, reliable and high-quality source.
“Consumers are increasingly looking to food for additional health benefits to help fight disease or ageing and the by-products from common foods produced in NZ like kiwifruit, grape and avocado could be better used to help grow the economy.
“The volume of grape by-product is substantial and of real interest to the industry.
“The active components in grape seed extract are known for their antioxidant activity and there are studies claiming antibacterial, antiviral and anti-inflammatory benefits.
“The current average price for grape skin powders is $40/kg upwards,” the report said.
It discussed the various drying technologies such as spray drying, freeze drying, thin film belt, osmotic vacuum, vacuum microwave, extrusion porosification technology, dehumidifier tray drying, flash drying and anhydro spin flash drying.
It also wrote descriptions of the service companies already offering toll processing of some of these technologies in NZ and three overseas leaders, two from the United States and the other from Switzerland, bringing new technologies here in 2017.
FlavorSense in the US was going to build a refractive window drier for trial and commercial production while Bucher Unipektin of Switzerland was bringing a dryband pilot plant to NZ.
EnWave of the US, which was the technology behind moon cheese dry snacks for Starbucks, was negotiating to install a 10kW nutrREV in The FoodBowl.
This technology could do dairy, meat, fruit and vegetables using microwave technology under vacuum.
It could do liquids and solids and was capable of making nutraceuticals.
The report identified opportunities for the meat industry to go far beyond the tallow, meat and bone meal co-products traditionally made.
Companies should be able to compete in the lucrative lipids, enzymes and proteins markets with the appropriate technologies.
An example was the US-owned Proliant blood plasma manufacturing plant in Feilding.
The report listed a large number of bioactive compounds from co-products like heart, kidney, liver and spleen and printed an even longer list of applications for beef co-products as cosmetic ingredients.
Non-food opportunities should not be forgotten. Although outside the scope of the report, the achievement of Wallace Corporation with biopolymers was cited.
The FoodBowl chief executive Alexandra Allan said the production of non-dairy powdered food products was predicted to play an increasing role in NZ’s export profile but a lack of technology was holding the industry back.
