Uelzena Ingredients expands range of industrial sweetened condensed milk

WS Warmsener Spezialitäten is expanding its range of products for industrial customers and is also investing in a new, flexible filling line for bag-in-box systems to open up completely new markets.

The company said current food trends require new product solutions to meet trends such as vegetarian and vegan products, products with an organic label, clean label or food for certain faith groups. The demand for suitable ingredients for the development and production of these new product qualities is also growing parallel within the food and confectionery manufacturers.

“On the one hand, we are noticing a strong increase in demand for certified varieties such as organic and/or Fairtrade as well as Halal and Kosher. And completely new products are being added, such as sweetened condensed milk with the addition of vegetable fat, purely vegetable alternatives without milk or even replacing the sugar with certain sugar substitutes,” says Johannes Rother, managing director of WS Warmsener Spezialitäten, describing the rapidly changing requirements of his customers.

The company has reacted by developing new varieties and also has certified its products for various standards to meet these new requirements.

The dairy in Warmsen is currently in the market for organic certified sweetened condensed milk, as well as for Fairtrade-licensed condensed milk.

WS Warmsener Spezialitäten uses RSPO-certified palm fat as RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) promotes sustainable cultivation methods for palm oil in the producer countries and has defined several principles and criteria that must be met for sustainable palm oil production.

WS Warmsener Spezialitäten will take advantage of popularity of bag-in-box systems (BIB), such as one-way and reusable containers with filling quantities of up to 1,000 kg or cartons with a capacity of up to 25 kg. And there is currently a strong demand for small BIBs with a capacity of 5 kg or more. They are used both in the restaurant and catering trade and also for smaller requirements of more artisanal processors from the confectionery, baking craft, ice-cream parlours and small speciality manufacturers.

“That is why we have invested in a versatile new filling line, so that we can react even more flexibly to the changing packaging requirements of our customers. It also enables us to expand our sales market, especially in the export of smaller packaging units and the new product variants with vegetable fat to the Asian market,” says Claudia Paland, project manager at WS Warmsener Spezialitäten.

The company also intends to supply the Asian region with the new recipes and container sizes in the future. In countries such as Vietnam or Indonesia, for example, sweetened condensed milk is traditionally used for whitening and sweetening tea, and there is a correspondingly high demand for GKM in tea rooms.

This market is also seeing growing demand for the new recipes with added vegetable fats or the purely vegetable alternatives.

By expanding its product range with new recipes and investing in new packaging options, the company believes it is well equipped to expand its export activities and at the same time further consolidate its leading position as a supplier of sweetened condensed milk for B2B customers throughout Europe.