DSM removes benzoate from cheese ripening enzyme to meet clean-label demand

Dutch health and nutrition company Royal DSM says its Accelerzyme CPG, the company’s proprietary enzyme for accelerated cheese ripening, is now benzoate-free.

With this upgrade, DSM said its core portfolio of cheese enzymes—including Maxiren XDS and Fromase — is now completely benzoate-free, allowing cheesemakers to respond to growing consumer demand for dairy products with a clean and clear label.

With artificial preservatives falling out of favor, cheesemakers are increasingly on the lookout for benzoate-free enzymes that help guarantee not just cheese but also whey is benzoate-free. DSM is upgrading its entire cheese enzyme portfolio in response to this need, changing the formulation matrices of the products to eliminate the need for benzoate-based preservation.

Product range

Evandro Oliveira de Souza, global business lead for cheese at DSM Food Specialties said today’s cheese manufacturers face multiple challenges: To continually increase cheese quality, while optimizing whey value and making products efficiently and sustainably.

High-quality, high-purity ingredients are key. At DSM, we want to continuously improve our portfolio to keep pace with the changing consumer and customer demand for better, healthier, and more sustainable food,” he said.

The latest addition to the benzoate-free range of cheese enzymes is Accelerzyme CPG, a unique carboxypeptidase cheese-ripening enzyme that accelerates balanced flavor formation in a variety of different cheese types. Accelerzyme CPG causes small peptides and amino acids in milk to release faster during the ripening process, converting these to flavor components by the added cheese cultures. This results in a faster ripening time, and a smaller environmental footprint.

Products in DSM’s portfolio of benzoate-free cheese enzymes include Maxiren XDS, a chymosin preparation with the highest-known protein specificity, which enables producers to get more from their milk and increase annual production by around 1%. Other products are Fromase, a microbial coagulant (endopeptidase) preparation, and a portfolio of lipases.