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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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