ILPS Short Course 2008

Meeting Report

REPORT on the ILPS Lecithin Short Course 2008 at Ghent University again successful!

In succession of the ILPS SC 2005 at Ghent, Belgium and the AOCS SC 2007 at Laval University, Quebec City this Lecithin SC was held June 5-6, 2008. About 70 participants including the instructors were welcomed. Participants came from Japan, India, Canada and various European countries. The SC was initiated and organized by Willem van Nieuwenhuyzen, Lecipro Consulting, Limmen, Netherlands and executive director of the International Lecithin and Phospholipid Society (ILPS) in close cooperation with Ghent University. Professor Paul van der Meeren, Professor Koen Dewettinck, PhD. Student Eveline Frederick and Management assistant Saskia Rombauts – van der Looven arranged all the conference facilities, laboratory demonstrations, catering and registration details. Thanks to the walking lunches and evening buffet, participants used intensively the opportunities for networking.

The course started with the session about Lecithin Characterization by Willem van Nieuwenhuyzen, dealing with lecithin production, modification, emulsifying properties and analytical procedures. In the 2nd session Eveline Frederick presented the emulsion preparation principles and equipment, followed by Paul van der Meeren teaching the stabilization of emulsions from a physic-chemical point of view.

With this basic knowledge the participants attended demonstrations in the laboratories of the Dept. of Food Science in the afternoon. Six rotating sub groups of participants attended the 6 demonstrations:

-Homogenization with APV Lab2000 and Lumifuge equipment
-Particle characterization the Malvern Mastersizer and Zetasizer,
-Emulsion characterization by the TA rheometer, Brookfield viscometer, Texture Analyzer and Maran pulsed field gradient-NMR
-Interfacial tension / rheology by Tracker, Wilhelmy and drop volume
-modified lecithin characterization in solvents and empirical O/W emulsion tests
-HPLC-LSD analysis of Phospholipid composition.

The short demonstration times of 30 minutes per group and the large groups made it difficult to run real experiments with samples, offered by participants. Suggestions were made how to optimize this attractive part of the SC for a next course.

After the lab demonstrations, Paul continued with Particle size distribution, followed by Davy VanderWalle of Ghent University with Rheology. Jaap Nijsse of Unilever Research, Vlaardingen, Netherlands presented seven Microscopy Techniques for studying the microstructure of food emulsions with illustrations of day-to-day issues in food plant production.

The second day started with Lecithin applications in food emulsions, taught by Willem. He made a selection of the use of lecithins in a number of applications such as instant agglomerated powders, baked goods, fat spreads and chocolate processing. Judith van Peij-Visser of Kerry Bioscience, Zwijndrecht, Netherlands presented the production, properties and applications of fat based mono-diglyceride esters. In food productions combinations of lecithins and these esters are often used. Paul van der Meeren presented the topic Phospholipid-protein interactions in dairy technology with a number of practical examples such as coffee cream and soy milk stability under acid conditions.

Legislative aspects of food emulsifiers, Identity Preservation non-GMO tracing systems and allergenic labeling were presented by Reinhard Lange of Cargill European Lecithin, Hamburg, Germany. He discussed the 4 lecithin health claim dossiers, submitted by the European Lecithin Manufacturer’s Association (ELMA) to the EU authorities, who placed them on the preliminary list for further approval actions.

Koen Dewettinck of Ghent University presented the influence of emulsifiers on crystallization kinetics of fats. He included the most recent PhD thesis results about phospholipids effect on milk fat crystallization, monoglycerides on Palm oil crystallization and diglycerides on Palm olein crystallization. Michael Schneider of Lecithos Consulting, Freinsheim, Germany taught about the progress in research and commercialization of non-soy phospholipids with focus on sphingolipids, marine phospholipids, PS phosphatidylserine, liposome encapsulation and pharmaceutical and nutrition aspects. These phospholipids contribute to new business developments in technological functions and functional healthy foods. The course ended with a paper on lecithin uses in animal feed applications such as milk replacer, and fish and poultry feeding.

During and after the course various enquiries were made about the planning of the next SC. Apparently this set up of the lecithin course meet interest of many (starting) emulsion scientists and lecithin technologists. For further information please contact ILPS Executive Director at willem@lecipro.nl.

Pictures

Below are some pictures from this year's event. Click on the picture thumb to view a larger version.

Audience	Conference Building	Excellent Food	J. Gareiss
K. Dewettinck	Presenter M. Schneider	Dinner Buffet	Phospholipds in Emulsions
Ghent City Center	Lab Demo	Dinner Buffet II	Audience II
Drost, J Nijsse	Speakers NiJsse, Van de Meeren, Fredrick, Van Nieuwenhuyzen, Van Peij

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