‘Give high risk infants peanuts to promote tolerance’: Osem opens new Bamba factory to keep up with demand

22-Feb-2019 - Last updated on 22-Feb-2019 at 11:28 GMT

Bamba's popularity has skyrocketed since the recommendations of the NIH to give high risk infants peanut products to minizime their risk of developing a peanut allergy. Pic: Bamba

Related tags Peanut allergy Bamba Nih

The Israeli snack producer has inaugurate its new Bamba factory to copy with increasing demand for the peanut butter flavored snack following NIH recommendation that high risk infants should be exposed to peanut products to minimize their risk.

Osem invested NIS 200m ($55m) to build the 16,000m² factory – the company’s third at its industrial zone in Kiryat Gat.

The first stage of the state-of-the-art facility will enable the producer to double its Bamba production volume to one million bags per day, and later on to about 1.5 million bags.

According to Meir Imber, VP of Operations for the Osem Group, the ‘green’ facility’s environmental impact will be less than that of a residential building as all its energy consumption is based on natural gas and zero waste sent to landfills.

He added that, by 2025, all product packaging will be from recyclable materials.

Osem began marketing its products to the kosher food market in the US and Europe through Osem USA and Osem UK more than 30 years ago.

Developing resistance

However, following recommendations by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2017 that high-risk infants with allergic tendencies should be exposed to peanut products in order to minimize their risk of developing a peanut allergy, the company debuted Bamba in the better-for-you segment.

The study – published in the New England Journal of Medicine – found that introducing peanut products into the diets of infants at high risk of developing a peanut allergy was safe and led to an 81% reduction in the subsequent development of the allergy.

“The results have the potential to transform how we approach food allergy prevention,” said Dr Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

“Living with peanut allergy requires constant vigilance. Preventing the development of peanut allergy will improve and save lives and lower health care costs.

“We expect that widespread implementation of these guidelines by health care providers will prevent the development of peanut allergy in many susceptible children and ultimately reduce the prevalence of peanut allergy in the United States.”

Last year, Bamba won a listing with American retail giant Walmart and plans to extend its reach in the coming months with additional retail chains and pharmacies.

In every US and EU supermarket

“Our dream is to see Bamba in every supermarket in the US and Europe,” said Osem Group’s CEO Avi Ben-Assayag.

“Thanks to the factory we are inaugurating today, we will be able to double production capacity and provide for demand in Israel and the increasing demand for Bamba in the US."

Dan Propper, chairman of Osem, added, “When we invented Bamba 55 years ago, we never thought it would become the best-selling snack in Israel or that it would attract such interest abroad as well.

“Over the years, Bamba has constantly developed, with a variety of new shapes and flavors, and the baby that became an Israeli icon is doing very well in Israel and abroad.”