CU-developed milk product makes its big e-Moo-ve

Bottles of e-Moo are filled in the CU food science department's pilot plant. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

Got e-Moo?

Taking direct aim at the youth sports drink and carbonated soft drink industry, a carbonated, milk-based beverage has been developed by food science researchers at Cornell. It is anticipated that e-Moo, made by Mac Farms Inc. of Burlington, Mass., will be in supermarket dairy cases this summer.

"The carbonation does the same thing in soft drinks as in e-Moo. It provides a carbonated sensation. Also, it extends the shelf life of what you would expect from milk," said Joseph Hotchkiss, Cornell professor of food science and one of the researchers who worked with Mac Farms on the product's development. "With refrigeration, we believe that e-Moo can last six weeks."

But unlike carbonated soft drinks, supercharged with sugar, flavoring and little -- if any -- nutrition, e-Moo is good for children. "The time might be right for e-Moo," said Hotchkiss. "The nutrition base is right. If you are 5 or 6 years old, you might like this. It has the nutrition profile of milk and could be made better than milk."

On March 20, the media came to campus to see how this carbonated milk beverage is made and bottled at Cornell's food science pilot plant. As a result, the Associated Press carried an article about the agricultural implications of e-Moo on its news wire as did United Press International. CNN features reporter Jeanne Moos produced a long, and humorous, story on e-Moo that aired March 20-21 on that TV network, and another report on the new drink was shown on Fox News over the March 24-25 weekend. Locally, television stations WIXT of Syracuse, WICZ of Vestal, WETM of Elmira and Time Warner's Newscenter 7 carried the story.

Mary Ann Clark, of Mac Farms, who worked with Cornell food scientists on the development of e-Moo, talks with Associated Press writer Bill Kates and Cornell Magazine's Diane Lloyd in the food science department's pilot plant March 20. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

The fluid idea of the e-Moo beverage began when George and Mary Ann Clark of Mac Farms noticed that children, teens and young adults were drinking large amounts of sports beverages and soft drinks. "At the same time, we also noticed that sales growth in the fluid dairy industry was flat," said Mary Ann Clark, vice president of marketing at Mac Farms. "There had been no recent technical innovations that were of any direct benefit to the consumer."

Mac Farms turned to Cornell's food science expertise to produce a formula and to provide data on product stability, nutritional efficacy and the modifications to standard milk processing equipment for production. "They wanted folks with experience -- and we helped turn this concept into a product," said Hotchkiss, who has been working with the company and Eric Hallstead, manager of the Cornell food science department's pilot plant, for about a year.

St. Albans Cooperative Creamery Inc. of St. Albans, Vt., a consortium of nearly 600 dairy farmers from Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, provided the initial funding for the development of e-Moo. In addition to the carbonation, Cornell and Mac Farms tested a variety of flavors to add to the product. Initially e-Moo will come to the market in three flavors: Orange Cremecicle, Cookies and Cream and Fudge Brownie. The product contains all the nutrition of non-fat milk with added calcium and only half the sodium found in other flavored milks. Named for the Internet world that children live in, said Clark, e-Moo is sweetened with fructose instead of refined sugar.

Said Hotchkiss: "If there is a salvation for the fluid milk business, which has been on an economic downslide, it is making a beverage with milk components. And this could be one successful product."