Dutch firm EBI Food Safety manufacture a commercial bacteriophage, Listex, that eliminates the deadly food pathogens Listeria monocytogenes in food without affecting its other properties.
Listex is effective in a range of Listeria-susceptible products including hams, hot dogs, cheese, fish and many ready to eat products.
EBI Food Safety received the gold trophy in the Best Innovation in Food Ingredients 2007 awards for Listex at the recent Fi Europe 2007 in London.
Commenting on the winning entry, chairman of the judging committee Henry Dixon said Listex is a “true innovation,” being a new approach to an “urgent and growing problem that affects both consumers and manufacturers.”
Silver
US company FiberStar won the silver for its Citri-Fi, a range of citrus fibre ingredients that can be used to deliver fat replacement, moisture management, water and oil binding or thickening in a range of products.
Bronze
Lactosalt Optitaste, a dairy mineral concentrate obtained through milk fractionation, from French firm Armor Proteines received the bronze.
The concentrate is a unique salt substitute that combines three of the benefits of salt – good taste, clean label credentials and ionic strength – while offering health benefits by completely replacing sodium from products including bread, meat, cheese and soup.
The awards, which honour the industry’s most innovative ingredients, leading-edge technology and prized research, has been running since 1994.