IFT 2018
Rembrandt Foods says bakery and snacks are ‘key pieces’ to egg white protein business
Paul Hardy, the company’s VP of sales and marketing, said the commercialization is a long process, but it has been going “very well.”
He added Rembrandt Foods will embark on full-scale manufacturing early next year after identifying which category offers the highest margins.
Gaining momentum
“We are getting a lot of momentum from our customers [for Rempro 8090],” he said, adding the bakery and snack categories are “key pieces to growing our egg white protein business.”
Rempro 8090 can help snack producers enhance their clean label claims and improve the amount of protein delivered in each bar.
“We are mostly working with distributors at this point, but we are also trying to get into end users and some bigger manufacturers that are using it as a base for their products, such as General Mills, Kraft [Heinz] and Nestlé,” he said.
Once the production of the protein isolate is in full swing, Rembrandt Foods will charge its customers a premium price due to its higher quality.
According to Hardy, this will be two to three times the cost per gram compared to other protein types, such as whey.
“It is not about us competing head-to-head with whey protein… because [we still] need to fit into our customers’ cost structure.”
He noted certain categories with higher overall value, such as snacks, will be easier to work with because “we can be a smaller percentage of their cost of goods without moving the needle so much on their total cost.”
Not intimidated
Similar to other egg-based ingredient suppliers, Rembrandt Foods has felt the pressure of a reduced demand for eggs due to the surge of plant-based trend.
Additionally, Hardy said US manufacturers are also switching to egg replacers since their prices are not affected by avian influenza.
“Especially in baking, 20% of the ‘egg’ ingredients are engineered,” he said.
According to this site, the US egg pricing came back to normal in January, 2016, following a surge sparked by an avian flu outbreak the year before.
However, Rembrandt Foods sees these challenges as an opportunity.
“Eggs contain bioactive protein, which are the origin of life,” said Hardy, adding enzymes that are found in a person’s gut are used to make protein isolate, as this breaks them down to an easily digestible level.
“Although whey is still a big competitor in terms of protein delivery mechanism and absorbability… our products are much more scalable.”
He added: “The eggs market is poised to make some really solid gains,” which will help Rembrandt Foods grow 20% in its bakery and snacks business in 2018.
