Thank you to Cheri Olerud for providing our February meeting recap!
The February Food & Consumer Science Professionals meeting was held at BiPro USA in Eden Prairie. We were warmly welcomed by Rickilee Sutherland, Marketing Associate, who said “the company is growing like crazy.” BiPro began as a small family-owned company, and is now part of a cooperative, a Canadian company.
Dan McKenzie Olson, Director of Sales, who previously worked on the industrial side and has now been in Sales for the last 4 years, said that 70% of the products are also sold internationally. The Consumer Products Group has grown from 2-3 people to 20, holding positions in marketing, social media and sales. Products are produced in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Idaho.
BiPro products, based on whey protein isolate, a supreme form of protein which comes from milk, is an exciting, growing business.
The company spends time educating coaches, sports teams, nutritionists and promoting their products at conventions and expos and partners with many different athletic groups including soccer, football, archery, triathletes, strength & conditioning, weightlifting, runners, marathoners, basketball and pole vaulting. They also cater to weight loss and bariatric patients.
The list of BiPRo products:
1. BiPro whey protein isolate-pure protein powder with minimal added ingredients, very nutrient-dense. (1 serving=20g protein); available unflavored, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. Unlike most other protein powders, BiPro contains all nine essential amino acids and the three branched chain amino acids (BCAAs).
2. BiPro protein water-this recently produced product comes in lemon, peach and berry flavors and also contains 1 serving or 20 grams of protein.
3. BioZZZ-naturally high in tryptophan which helps you relax, BioZZZ is a sleep improvement supplement, a protein sleep aid.
We learned that BiPro consumers are intergenerational, men, women, members of the sports nutrition industry, elite Olympic athletes, weight loss and bariatric patients and anyone who just wants to easily add high-quality protein to their diets.
Next, Lois Baker, senior food scientist, showed us around her lab, where she develops new products and recipes using BiPro products in cookbooks and recipes for the web site. She has a B.S. in Nutrition Science and a Master’s degree in Cereal Chemistry, both from NDSU and has worked for BiPro for 19 years. In the last 12 years, she developed 600 recipes for Asian Smoothies, Healthy In-Between Snacks, Bariatric, Gluten-free, Vegetarian, Dessert and Halloween cookbooks and many more lovely, high-quality cookbooks and tasty web site recipes.
Continually working on creative ways to make foods/recipes look and taste good, Lois also styles the food for photographs. Sweet recipes are easier, savory recipes more of a challenge, she noted. BiPro uses bloggers to develop a few of their recipes and occasionally does recipe contests to secure content.
Four people work in the BiPro lab, three Food Scientists and one Culinologist. The lab will be expanding soon, where they will have a larger, dedicated photography space. They occasionally hire summer interns in food science, marketing, communications, sales and other backgrounds.
Lois loves making protein bites and had prepared samples for us to taste: mini chocolate chip cookies using strawberry-flavored protein powder, peanut butter energy bites, hummus and a strawberry-banana- yogurt smoothie. Yum!!
In the area of new product development, Lois is currently working on a pancake mix, flavored protein water with natural caffeine, a protein bar bite, a product for long-term wound healing, and is developing recipes for a cookbook for California.
As we were leaving, each person was handed a BiPro bag which contained samples of BiPro protein water, BioZZZ and BiPro protein powder, a very nice gift indeed.
For more information on this growing MN company, go to https://www.biprousa.com/bipro/about
In Success and Luck, Frank asks how important is luck? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. Yet liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance events play a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people once imagined. Frank will explore the interesting and sometimes unexpected implications of those findings for how best to think about the role of luck in life.
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