Overview:

The session highlights how the rapidly growing lactose-free dairy market is moving beyond liquid milk into a wider range of applications, creating new formulation and scalability challenges. It focuses on how dried lactose-free dairy ingredients can provide improved shelf life, consistency, and formulation flexibility, and underscores the importance of working with specialized ingredient partners to successfully innovate and commercialize lactose-free products.

The lactose-free dairy category continues to expand beyond liquid milk into yogurts, frozen desserts, beverages, snacks, and other value-added applications. As this growth accelerates, manufacturers are increasingly seeking ingredient solutions that offer greater shelf life, consistency, and formulation flexibility than traditional in-process lactose hydrolysis in liquid systems.

This session will examine the role of dried lactose-free dairy ingredients in supporting scalable innovation across applications. Attendees will gain insight into key market drivers, formulation considerations associated with monosaccharide-rich dairy systems, and how varying protein, fat, and carbohydrate compositions can be leveraged to optimize product performance. The discussion will also highlight the value of partnering with specialized lactose-free ingredient suppliers to reduce technical risk and accelerate commercialization.

Event Agenda:

Speaker(s):

Bang Chen - Technical Sales Manager - Valio USA

Bang Chen is the Technical Sales Manager at Valio, where he leads business development and provides technical expertise for Valio’s portfolio of specialty lactose-free milk ingredients across the United States. In this role, he works closely with manufacturers in the dairy, beverage, confectionery, and frozen dessert sectors to translate Valio’s advanced ingredient technologies into innovative, commercially viable consumer products.

A food scientist by training and an entrepreneur at heart, Bang specializes in helping B2B partners optimize formulations for taste, nutrition, and functional performance, enabling them to bring the next generation of high-protein, sugar-reduced, lactose-free, and functional CPGs to market.

Before joining Valio, Bang spent 9 years at Saputo’s dairy ingredients business, where he held roles spanning operations, R&D, and commercial functions.Bang holds a Master of Science degree in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin.

Event Contact:  Christian Serrato cserrato@palmerholland.com

Thank you, Kalsec, Inc., for supporting year-round RCA events

RCA Disclosures:

Contact Information: By registering for this event, you consent to the sharing of your contact information (such as name, email address, and company) with the event’s sponsors. This information will be shared exclusively with sponsors for purposes related to the event and will not be shared with other attendees or third parties.

Photographs and Videos: During this event, RCA may take photographs and/or video of you which may be posted to social media and on the association’s website. By registering for and attending this event, you agree to the use of images in photographs and/or video for this purpose. Additionally, other event attendees may take photographs and post said photographs to social media. RCA shall not be responsible for photographs taken and/or shared by other event attendees.

Session Recordings: This session may be recorded for the purpose of education, training, and use in RCA’s Learning Library. The recording will be used for this stated purpose and shall not be used for any other purpose. Do not share information that you do not wish to be recorded.  If you are uncomfortable being recorded, please refrain from speaking and submit questions via email.