Dow Chemical, DuPont & Praxair Have Plans for Better Dining

Brett Chase / Bloomberg News 18jan01

BURR RIDGE, IL - Praxair Inc., the largest U.S. producer of industrial gases, says it can give concentrated orange juice that just-squeezed taste.

DuPont Co. and Dow Chemical Co., the two largest U.S. chemical makers, want people to drink more soy milk and eat more veggie burgers.

That's right: Companies that make plastics, nylon and paint want to help fill consumers' plates and glasses. With their major businesses hurt this year by rising costs of raw materials, slowing sales and currency fluctuations, chemical-makers are trying to become more diverse.

Food is still a relatively small line for them. Praxair, which had $1.2 billion in sales last year, is better known for providing oxygen for steel production. It hopes its juice technology, which it will begin selling by midyear, will fetch $50 million in annual revenue within a few years.

With 1.5 billion gallons of orange juice produced in the United States each year, the company's share of the market may get bigger, said David Farmer, director for food and beverage marketing at Praxair.

Food lines have profit margins of as high as 40 percent, compared with about 12 percent overall at Praxair, Farmer said.

In its research laboratory in Burr Ridge, Ill., Praxair developed equipment to treat orange juice using carbon dioxide, thus replacing a pasteurizing system that cooks the juice at high temperature and alters its taste.

That development could be important as consumers seek more natural foods, Farmer said. "Consumers really want juice that tastes like real juice," he said.

Praxair also is developing a System, again using carbon dioxide, that cools eggs immediately after they're laid. That could extend shelf life, Farmer said. The technology might fetch $100 million in sales a year within the next few years.

There's at least one problem that Praxair officials found with using carbon dioxide with food. In some cases, the gas might be considered an ingredient.

Orange juice can still be called orange juice if it's treated with carbon dioxide, but it can't be called fresh.

The standards for ingredients on milk are different, so a plan to use carbon dioxide to pasteurize milk was shelved. U.S. regulators might consider the gas a food additive, the company feared, so adding it to milk might force dairies to call the result a milk drink. Praxair officials figured that name wouldn't sell very well.

Dow hopes its Methocel food additive will sell well with companies that are cooking up thousands of new food products this year, many geared toward either health-conscious consumers or junk-food lovers on the go.

Donald Coffey, general manager of Dow's Methocel, is excited about pizza rolls, fish sticks and cheese sauces. He's most excited, though, about veggie burgers - patties made from soy, vegetables or grains that substitute for ground beef.

"Eat More Veggie Burgers" is printed on the back of Coffey's business cards. The more burgers sold, the better for Dow because Methocel keeps the patties from falling apart.

Methocel is methyl cellulose, a chemical derived from wood cellulose, a carbohydrate found in plants. It sometimes shows up among ingredients listed on packages as modified cellulose, modified vegetable gum or cellulose gum. It's used as a thickener in soups and sauces and helps bind pizza-roll filling, fish sticks and veggie burgers.

In the lab, Methocel looks like a clear, slimy goo. It's odorless and tasteless. Only small amounts are needed in food - maybe 1 percent or less of a burger patty.

Methocel also helps keep water from leaching out of food at low temperatures, averting a type of spoilage called freezer burn.

The stuff has other uses, too, from a shampoo ingredient to the slime used for special effects in the movie "Ghostbusters."

Dow officials refuse to disclose sales for Methocel, though Coffey said the line is one of Dow's fastest growers, with revenue doubling in just the past five years and expected to double again in the next five.

Soy-based products like veggie burgers are growing, too, according to the Soyfoods Association of America. Annual sales in the United States rose about 20 percent to $2.1 billion in 1999.

Growth could be even more robust except soy has a bad rap: It tastes bitter, and it gives people gas. It's not exactly what you'd want to serve company.

DuPont, the world's largest chemical company, is also a big supplier of soybean seeds. Its Protein Technologies International Inc. is working on ways to make the soy-eating experience more pleasant.

DuPont has high hopes for soy because the ubiquitous bean has a number of health benefits, so foods made from it could become hot sellers. That, in turn, could benefit some of DuPont's businesses.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1999 first let food companies say soy can reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol.

Research presented to the American Dietetic Association and other groups suggests soy reduces the risk of osteoporosis, a disorder in which bones become brittle. It also could alleviate the hot flashes women experience during menopause, but the FDA doesn't let food companies make those claims.

Agriculture, nutrition and Pioneer contributed $3.8 billion of DuPont's $24.6 billion in sales through the first nine months of 2000.