Food Protection Trends - May/June 2018 - 232

IAFP's Food Safety Innovation Award
Brian Umberson and Jena Roberts of Novolyze

It has been an
exciting year for
Novolyze after
receiving the
2017 International Association for Food Protection Food
Safety Innovation Award. Based in France, Novolyze has
developed Surronov, which is a range of dry surrogates
that vastly improves quality for low-moisture foods by
enabling in-plant validations and verifications of kill step
processes. The dry surrogate products are non-pathogenic
bacteria that mimic the behavior of foodborne pathogens
under different kinds of stress.
Recently, Novolyze leadership conducted a media call
led by CEO and Founder Karim-Franck Khinouche. Mr.
Khinouche was very happy to reflect on the year, "2017 has
been the best year in the history of Novolyze and we want to
recognize that the IAFP 2017 Innovation Award was pivotal
to our momentum." Mr. Khinouche added, "We knew that
the IAFP Innovation Award would be very beneficial but
it was better than we expected. We are a biotech company
that supports food safety, so IAFP is a logical association as
the respected leader for food safety initiatives that support
science and technology. The International response to us
receiving the Innovation Award is proof that IAFP is truly
a respected force around the globe. IAFP recognized our
technology and it opened doors for us with many companies
around the globe. We feel that our IAFP award-winning
technology attracted recent projects in Europe and North
America as well as projects to improve food safety in treated
powder foods like flour."
Novolyze is emboldened by recent awards and opportunities to make a difference in food safety around the globe.
Novolyze has been involved in multiple projects within the
burgeoning treated flour market as well as less traditional
low-moisture food products. Limagrain Céréales Ingredients
partnered with Novolyze® to reinforce the microbiological
control of its proprietary heat process for flours: Farigel®. Mr.
Khinouche added, "The partnership with Limagrain created further experience for our team that enables us to gain
credibility in treated flour processing. The new treated flour
segment is primarily a ready-to-eat (RTE) application OR for
those that are potentially eaten prior to cooking such as cookie
dough, ice cream additives, mixes, seasoning blends, etc."
The award is also a strong encouragement for Novolyze
to pursue our Research & Development programs around
process validation. In that respect, Novolyze recently
announced they have been awarded French Government
funding to further develop innovative solutions to improve

safety of fresh and frozen produce. Chief Science Officer
Dr. Pablo Alvarez has been leading the effort to develop
new products. Dr. Alvarez spoke about the new visibility
opening doors for projects that drive innovation, "We feel
honored to receive the award, yet also feel that it is our
duty to use the IAFP visibility to engage our unique dry
surrogate technology in the low-moisture foods segment.
Low-moisture foods are encountering increased risk for
consumers and corporate brands because of decade's old
beliefs that there was no basis for microbial growth. The
low-moisture foods segment has not had a credible way to
validate their processes via Gold-Standard data like other
food segments can with liquid surrogates."
The existing Surronov products are driving revenue
in the low-moisture food segment. Novolyze has other
products that are in various stages of development to serve
markets beyond traditional low-moisture foods. Dr. Alvarez
added, "We are fortunate to have access to resources from
collaborators to create products that are a result of multiple
collaborations and projects. Our goal is to create a portfolio
of products that cater to diverse markets, so the French
Government project to develop Innovations for fresh
and frozen produce is going to be one of the pillars of our
diverse product development. The same can be said for the
collaborations we are developing in the Terra Accelerator."
In November, Novolyze® won the Pitch Contest sponsored
by French retailer and food manufacturer Intermarché®.
Intermarché®, a leading European retailer, operates more
than 2,300 store locations throughout Europe as well as
60+ food processing facilities. Mr. Khinouche added, "The
IAFP Innovation Award was sponsored by Walmart, thus
we are happy retailers like Intermarche and Walmart create
visibility for the use of surrogates to make food processes
more efficient, and ultimately safer. Retailers need more food
safety tools to help them provide the best products at the
best price to consumers." Intermarche and Novolyze will
explore applications to drive efficiency and improved quality
within the Intermarche infrastructure.
Mr. Khinouche was happy to talk about an additional new
item, "We are also excited to participate in the Terra Tech
Accelerator." This fall, Novolyze® was chosen to participate
in Terra, the Food + Ag Tech Accelerator as one of 18 food
and agriculture startups that are deemed most disruptive
and progressive. Terra is a collaboration of Rabobank
and Rocketspace that involves partner companies Nestle,
AgroFresh, BASF, Beta San Miguel, Givaudan, GrainCorp,
Griffith Foods, Grupo Azucarero Mexico/CULTIBA, and
OSI Group.

*Author for correspondence: Telephone: +1 870.273.8020; E-mail: brian.umberson1024@outlook.com

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