Pulari Nair, works as a Senior Developer for Danone, North America. She have completed her entire university education, streamlined to dairy, and worked over 12 years in the North American cheese industry. In short, she have devoted her entire career to dairy and currently switching back and forth between dairy and plant-based industries.

Plant-based products are a key driver of sales growth at grocery retailers nationwide, growing almost twice as fast as overall food sales. The growth rate for the U.S. plant-based food market more than doubled in 2020, as sales surged 27% to $7 billion, according to the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) and The Good Food Institute (GFI).

However, the technologies to deliver the plant-based ingredients are still at its infancy. The challenging factors are lack of complete protein, low bioavailability of vitamins and minerals, proteins because of some anti-nutrients and polyphenols. Additionally, multiple processing steps and additives are needed to over come the flavour off notes. Traditionally plant-based products like beverages, yoghurt, cheese and so on being processed in existing dairy processing facilities.  Are these ingredients; especially plant proteins with a well-defined quaternary structure; capable to withstand these severe processing conditions like random coiled caseins? Is the plant based industry capable to deliver products of superior quality like dairy industry? Pulari Nair would like this session to give a holistic view of novel technologies and processes in the realm of plant based world