Fonterra’s foodservice business, Anchor Food Professionals, has launched a new soft style cream cheese to provide more versatility and convenience for its foodservice customers in the Middle East.
The Anchor Food Professionals Soft Style Cream Cheese offers a richer cream cheese flavour, better bake stability and softer texture.
Alastair Bruce, general manager, GCC for Anchor Food Professionals, said: “With rising incomes and rapid growth of out-of-home dining, food and beverage operators are increasingly seeking premium dairy solutions to meet the demand for excellence, convenience and great taste – but at the same time, affordability.
“We’ve developed our new Soft Style Cream Cheese especially for the Middle East region, to meet local chefs’ preferences to work with a softer style of cream cheese without losing its full dairy flavour.”
The launch is part of Anchor Food Professionals’ strategy to capitalise on changing consumer trends in the Middle East including a shift towards premiumisation.
The new Soft Style Cream Cheese was launched at a series of workshops from September to October attended by around 50 pastry chefs and customers, which provided information on how to create innovative cream cheese recipes.
The workshops were led by pastry chef and Anchor Food Professionals ambassador Jean-Francois Arnaud (JFA) and Anchor Food Professionals regional senior advisory chef, Manfred Kohlen.
Anchor Soft Style Cream Cheese is manufactured locally in Fonterra’s Dammam manufacturing facility, which also enables shorter delivery times to its customers.
Bruce added: “This week’s demonstration workshop is the latest in a series of training sessions held at our innovation centre in Dubai, where our sales team and advisory chef – together with Chef JFA – offer training and education to commercial chefs and kitchen staff to help support foodservice growth.
“The Anchor Food Professionals team is committed to adding value to our customers’ products and processes with constant innovation and tailored solutions that help them stay ahead of the competition.”
Over the past year, the international dairy company saw 27% sales volume growth globally and 16% growth in the GCC in its foodservice business, with more than 50% increase in its customer base.
Anchor Food Professionals is a supplier of dairy products and solutions to around 7,000 restaurants, fast food outlets, hotels, bakeries, catering and food businesses in the Middle East.
It has offices and distributors in the UAE, Oman, KSA, Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon, as well as an innovation centre in Dubai and a manufacturing facility in Dammam.
Anchor Food Professionals provides dairy solutions including products that improve productivity, increase yield, reduce wastage, enhance taste and deliver exciting new menu options, as well as front-of-house menu presentation and back of house product technical support.
