Valentin M. Rauh is a Chief Scientist at Arla Innovation Center (AIC), located in Agro Food Park in Aarhus, right across the street from The Department of Food Science (AU FOOD). The short distance between the two locations is however not the only reason for the new collaboration between the two heavy-weight champions within food and dairy science.

Dairy is facing significant challenges when it comes to environmental sustainability. While new technologies and farm practices are key to reduce the environmental footprint of dairy production, evidence-based science on dairy’s role in nutrient and health provide the answer to why we can still consume dairy as part of healthy, sustainable diets. This is exactly where expert Valentin M. Rauh comes in.

With a strong and impressively wide scientific background spanning food enzymes, analysis of proteins, peptides, lipids, metabolites, aroma components, food quality and processing from lab scale to pilot and industrial scale, Valentin M. Rauh is an obvious pick for strengthening knowledge and research within the field of Dairy Chemistry and Technology and ultimately help us solve the challenges for the future of dairy more effectively.

From student in Germany to dairy expert in Denmark

From wandering the halls of The Technical University of Munich in Germany at the Institute for Food and Health to making the choice of staying in Aarhus and Denmark, the journey to writing both PhD in Food Science, Research and Chief Scientist in Protein and Aroma Chemistry at Arla Innovation Center (AIC) and now Affiliated Associate Professor in Dairy Chemistry and Technology at AU FOOD on his resume has not been a straight line. Today, he is settled in with his wife and two children in Aarhus. He is leaning back into his chair in a beige colored t-shirt with a friendly smile as we speak about his path to the new position and take a walk down memory lane together, which he reminisces on with a shy fondness and humble pride.

“There’s still so much to explore, even though it’s just milk – which I get a lot! Can you still do something on milk?”, he chuckles. “But yeah… There’s still a lot to do.”

The fascination with milk and dairy already blossomed as an early interest while Valentin M. Rauh was still studying at The Technical University of Munich in Germany. While working as a student worker, he met milk in a scientific context for the first time and casein micelles, which are tiny protein particles in milk that deliver nutrients like calcium, spiked his curiosity:

“I fell in love. I did both my Bachelor and my Master thesis on casein micelle structure and modification, and I just really fell in love with that complex matrix. I was always interested in milk and heat treatments, changes after heat treatment, enzymes and shelf-life questions with all the connected analytical techniques,” he pauses and briefly glances to his right as if searching for the best way to explain something complex in simple manner. “It’s not enough to just know about proteins, it’s important to know the whole protein matrix – how do the other components interact during processing? That’s something where I’m still not bored, because there’s so much to explore.”

The milk matrix

Exploring complex formations in and around milk and dairy is exactly what Valentin M. Rauh will be spending his time on as an Affiliated Associate Professor at The Department of Food Science (AU FOOD). The behavior of and theory on his beloved casein micelles is an area of great significance to milk protein’s role in the future of dairy. “I am mainly focused on putting different results together. I don’t want to be a silo in terms of looking at measurements individually – instead, I want to combine them and understand the relation between different results, linking it all back to the milk matrix. I’ll be focusing less on the analytical part and more on the ‘how do we actually integrate different results together’ part.” Noting that he stems from Arla Innovation Center (AIC), I ask him: “So very industry oriented in that way as well?” He exhales with a warm smile and brief chuckle as if I just caught him with his hands in the kitchen table cookie jar and replies: “Yeah!”

Cross-contribution across the street and within the walls of AU FOOD

And the industrial oriented approach to his research as an Affiliated Associate Professor at The Department of Food Science (AU FOOD) brings a highly relevant perspective to the scientific field. In a time with increased focus on the future of dairy, there is significant scientific potential in a collaboration between the competencies at the department and Arla Innovation Center (AIC). Valentin M. Rauh himself highlights it as one of the most exciting factors about his new position; “The closer interaction with all the smart people at AU FOOD, utilizing the equipment that AU has, and fostering that synergy where we can actually discuss methods, analysis techniques, pitfalls, and share equipment, that can really help lift up the analytical performance at both Arla and AU,” he says.

Valentin M. Rauh will not only be cross-contributing across the street in Agro Food Park but within the walls of The Department of Food Science (AU FOOD) as well. Working with a special affiliation to Food Chemistry, one of five scientific teams within the department, he will be part of providing new knowledge about food chemistry, understanding food behavior, and changes during storage, but also potentially providing new knowledge related to processing technologies, industrial applications and sensory insights, thereby contributing to several scientific teams within the department such as Food Technology and Food Quality Perception and Society as well.

The future of dairy

Cooperation and cross-contribution, or looking at all parts of the matrix in Valentin M. Rauh’s line of words, will be essential in facing the biggest challenge for the future of dairy. When I ask him what the biggest challenge currently facing the dairy industry according to him is, we stumble upon the longest pause in our conversation yet. He glances to the side once again, pondering, as if he is running through a folder filled with archived files of his extensive knowledge and experiences inside his own mind. We sit in silence for quite some time before he reaches a conclusion, that he can come to terms with himself. Friendly and firmly, in a manner only someone who really knows their field can deliver it, he says: “Well, the biggest challenge is sustainability.”

Hammering a burning hot topic onto the center of the conversation, Valentin M. Rauh points to a challenge relevant to us all regardless of what field we find ourselves working in. In terms of dairy, he points to several initiatives put in place to embrace the paramount challenge, such as: “Investigating how we can put the great nutrition that dairy brings into the perspective of a sustainable diet, moving away from a single product, where people say ‘milk is bad’, to figuring out the place of dairy and milk in the whole diet.” Another initiative revolves around aiming to get the best product properties by mixing plants and dairy, optimizing nutrition and facing the challenges that these mixtures bring. “And of course, always considering sustainability, consumer experience and the cost of it all,” he adds.

Highlighting the complexity of the sustainability challenge well, Valentin M. Rauh calmly dives deeper into his reflection: “It’s not a black and white world. Or people very often see it as a black and white world, but it’s not black and white. There’s a lot of initiatives that affect all of us in terms of sustainability, and there’s a huge challenge around handling and communicating that as well.” Valentin M. Rauh admits that he, as part of a cooperative, has an interest in owners making money and thriving, but according to him, there’s more to it than just financial sustainability: “It’s not only the primary production, there’s also a lot going on in terms of food waste, packaging, and especially phasing out virgin plastic, and then of course, from a food science perspective, what does all this mean for the product?”, demonstrating exactly how his insights and line of thinking might contribute to several scientific areas reaching beyond what one might refer to as ‘just milk’.

Valentin M. Rauh looks both relaxed and relieved as I tell him that we’ve reached the end of our interview. After discussing a few formalities, I ask him one last question: if he had to summarize his upcoming research at the department in a nutshell, what would he say? Looking briefly up towards his left, genuinely thinking about the question, he smiles and shares:

”Rattling some of the last super, super fundamental secrets that milk has to offer. That’s what I’m hoping for.”

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Contact

Valentin M.  Rauh
Chief Scientist at Arla Innovation Center (AIC) & Affiliated Associate Professor at Department of Food Science at Aarhus University
E-mail: au452299@food.au.dk
Tel: +45 87 33 27 83

Kimie Kongsøre
Journalist and Science Communicator
Department of Food Science at Aarhus University
E-mail: kiko@food.au.dk
Tel: +45 20 84 43 63