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Your Coop
News
Fighting
Fat With By-Products
Fat is the tobacco of
the future. That�s how Greg Halpern, CEO of Circle Group
Holdings, Inc., sees it. He wonders if there will be a time
when obesity is addressed by law and restaurants will be
required to disclose food content, on the back of menus, in
the same way tobacco companies list ingredients.
Before that day arrives, Halpern believes he knows how
to reverse a dangerous national weight gain trend using
by-products of the wet-grain milling process. He�s betting his
product, Z-Trim� will do what products like olestra
couldn�t�make our nation�s favorite treats nonfattening and
tasty with no unpleasant side effects.
Concurrently,
Z-Trim could add value to markets for oats, wheat, soybeans,
and corn. �A ton of corn hulls is worth $70 if sold to a feed
lot,� Halpern explains. �As Z-Trim, the same quantity has a
potential value of $6,500 to $8,200.� Corn by-product is
probably the best material making the fat replacer, but the
other commodities have all been tested, during extensive
research that lead up to the marketing of Z-Trim by Circle
Group, through its subsidiary, Fiber Gel
Technologies.
Z-Trim represents a heartfelt crusade for
its discoverer, Dr. George Inglett, of the USDA�s Agricultural
Research Service. Formerly overweight, Dr. Inglett grasped the
potential of his creation to give foods a pleasing texture and
�mouth feel� while adding no calories.
Baked goods,
pastas, snack foods, dairy products, and ground meats with
Z-Trim also gain insoluble fiber, which leaves a person
feeling fuller and aids digestion. During trials at the
Agricultural Research Service adding a half-teaspoon of Z-Trim
to brownies slashed 29 grams of fat. And in taste tests, food
professionals liked Z-Trim brownies better. On the other side
of the plate, hamburgers with Z-Trim could have 10 to 15
percent less fat, according to Inglett�s tests.
When
Greg Halpern, an admitted health fanatic, understood the
significance of this research. Last fall his company, Circle
Group, switched gears when it bought the rights to Z-Trim.
Previously, his funding and consulting company specialized in
developing startup resources for other companies. Now Halpern
is beating the drum for his own product.
In some
quarters, a fat-free product is a hard sell, he admits. It
isn�t the cost of producing food products with Z-Trim that
worries the food giants; it�s uncertain response from
consumers that Halpern battles every day. �They don�t get it
yet,� he explains. �It�s true people aren�t demanding less fat
in their foods�yet.�
Halpern figures the argument will
be won, but not by touting the fat-free content of foods with
Z-Trim. He�d rather sell the product in terms of taste and
consumption. Replace fat with Z-Trim and influence the number
of, say, Krispy Kreme doughnuts a consumer could buy with his
morning coffee.
So, his firm is baking cakes for the
food experts to taste and securing overseas production
agreements for Z-Trim. The Chinese, for instance, may be out
front in understanding the implications of an overweight
population. In early February, Circle Group announced an
agreement with an Indonesian firm to begin production and
marketing of Z-Trim in Asia.
In the United States,
Halpern expects Z-Trim will first appear in products aimed at
health food market and then subtly influence the mainstream
chips-and-pizza population.
Posted: 2/18/03
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