Yoghurt company to apply for R&D grant

TIM CRONSHAW/The Press

ADDING VALUE: Westland Milk Products factory in Hokitika. The company supplies milk powder to yoghurt company EasiYo, which it bought three months ago.

Home-made yoghurt exporter EasiYo Products, one of Auckland's largest exporters, wants to be one of the first companies to qualify for the Government's newly announced research and development grant for technology development.

EasiYo chief executive Paul O'Brien announced the firm's research plans at the official opening of its new $4 million processing plant in Albany on Auckland's North Shore on Thursday.

The Government announced this month that it was putting $321m towards science and technology in the Budget including $20m towards technology transfer vouchers targeted at small-to-medium-sized firms like EasiYo with little in-house R&D capability.

Under the scheme, SMEs can apply for a voucher worth between $100,000 and $200,000 to use in completing a project with a public research organisation.

Mr O'Brien said the company had three research projects that would meet the voucher criteria. The first, to be conducted by TechNZ and Massey University, will refute or validate AssureQuality's findings that EasiYo's made-at-home yoghurt has two to four times more good bacteria compared to chilled, supermarket versions. The second project in conjunction with the Liggins Institute will look into the impact of yoghurt as breakfast food for low decile school children.

"Anecdotal tests have already been carried out in West Auckland schools with teachers saying that children behave better because they are now having complete breakfasts every day"' Mr O'Brien said.

The last research project stems from Britain's Royal College of Obstetrics invitation for EasiYo to become its preferred brand of yoghurt in a medical promotion to increase the calcium intake of 500,000 pregnant women.

"These demonstrate the power of research and its role in marketing. Our export customers are all awaiting for the results of the probiotic culture test.

"The calcium-intake promotion will start in June and I will be looking for research opportunities here, too, so that we can approach Australia and New Zealand health authorities to do something similar," Mr O'Brien said.

EasiYo is owned by Westland-based dairy co-operative Westland Milk Products, which bought it three months ago. It supplies EasiYo's milk powder. Westland chairman Matt O'Regan said the new 1700 square metre factory is part of a strategy to "gain a greater foothold in the value-add end of the dairy industry".

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