Vermont Business Magazine Noluma International, LLC has partnered with Jersey Girls Dairy of Chester, VT, to design their new light-protected packaging for their pasteurized fresh milk brand. The packaging is designed to protect milk’s nutritional value, and maintain its freshness longer. Research has shown that retail, refrigerator and home fluorescent and LED lights degrade the vitamins and nutrients in milk and affect its sensory characteristics as soon as an hour after light exposure.
Owner Lisa Kaiman sports sunglasses at her dairy with just one of the girls. Courtesy photos.
The patented light protection technology that Noluma uses to measure packaging is unique in that it assigns a light protection factor (LPF) that is tied to the integrity of the contents. Based on this, Noluma internationally certifies only packaging that achieves an LPF high enough to block damaging light. Jersey Girls’ & Noluma™ light-protected pack made its debut in Vermont this summer.
Noluma has verified through measurement that no other fresh milk in Vermont has an LPF high enough to protect contents from light damage.
Nolumachose to launch their servicesin the state of Vermontbecause of its "renowned dairy industry and specialty food culture." The company said in a statement that it hopes that their educational campaign and marketing investment in Jersey Girls Dairy will spill over and help lift retail milk sales in the state as a whole. The goal is to use Jersey Girl’s success as a global case study in light protection of packagingas Nolumamoves forward to bring their innovative service and certification to other parts of the world.
The Noluma company and Jersey Girls invite other dairies to light protect their packaging too ([email protected])
Jersey Girls and Nolumaare running a summer-long broadcast and digital marketingcampaign to educate Vermont consumers aboutthe problem of nutrient degradation in milk due to artificial lighting, and demonstrate how Noluma™ ensuresthatthe nutritional content andquality of Jersey Girlsartisanalmilk is preserved in their certified light -protected bottle. Jersey Girls is performing demonstrations at several area farmers markets to show consumers the negative effect of light on milk and the benefit of certified light-protectedpackaging.
Most consumersdon’tunderstand that by the time milk is taken home from the grocery store, many of its nutrients may already be gone. This information can be surprising, especially to parents who rely on milk to provide important nutrition to their young children or to medical professionals prescribing milk to address nutritional deficiencies.It has been found that artificial lights affect the Riboflavin in milk due to photo-oxidation, causes other nutrients and the milk itself to spoil faster affecting taste and smell.Research shows that Vitamin B12 was reduced by 28% and influenced ascorbic acid content in dairy milk in a clear bottle without light protection after only an hour exposure to sunlight.Also impacted are other components of milk such as vitamins, amino acids, proteins and lipids.After 6 days of storing milk under typical fluorescent retail lighting, a 58% reduction in Vitamin A occurred in typical jug packaging. (Learn more atjerseygirlsnoluma.com)
The bottles are manufacturered at Rocheleau in Fitchburg, MA.
Jersey Girls will be demonstrating the new Noluma™ packaging at the following Farmers Markets:
August 10, 3-7p, Rochester Farmers Market
August 18, 10a-3p, SpringfieldFarmers Market
August 22, 4-7p, BarreFarmers Market
August 31, 4-7p, HartlandFarmers Market
Sept 1, 9-1, Capital CityFarmers Market (Montpelier)
Sep 7, 3-6, ChelseaFarmers Market
Source: Jersey Girls