Meet Dr. Alison Dixon

Dr. Alison Dixon is a Senior Nutrition Scientist in Westland’s Innovation team, based in Hokitika. She helps guide the science behind Westpro’s functional dairy ingredients, translating emerging research into practical, customer‑focused insights. With more than two decades of experience and expertise in lactoferrin, Alison ensures our ingredients are fit for purpose and aligned with global trends.

From concept to finished product, where does your expertise deliver value for our customers?

My work makes the biggest impact at the point where a customer’s idea becomes something real. That includes shaping early concepts, advising on ingredient choices and inclusion levels, and helping teams understand what claims are scientifically supportable.

If a customer ends up with a product that’s clearer in purpose, backed by strong science, and easier to defend in market – and they feel confident in the journey – that’s a great outcome.

When customers need tight nutritional targets, how do you help navigate seasonality and what’s realistically achievable?

A helpful starting point is to align on expectations early. Milk is a natural raw material rather than a synthesised ingredient, so it’s nutritional profile naturally shifts with season, stage of lactation, weather, and feed.

From there, we can look at what standardisation can and cannot influence – through process settings, blending, or other interventions. Each layer of standardisation comes with trade-offs in yield, cost, or functionality, so the focus becomes identifying which parameters truly matter for performance, claims, and regulatory needs.

We’ll also review historical composition ranges across seasons and show what’s consistently achievable and what’s technically possible. If a target sits outside natural variability, we can talk through what would be required to reach it.

For formulators moving from benchtop to pilot to commercial scale, what challenges do you face and how do you design around it early?

Scaleup often exposes assumptions that worked in the lab but fail under real-world conditions.

• In wet systems: hydration, shear, residence time, and heat exposure can behave very differently at scale.
• In dry systems: powders that blend smoothly and uniformly at small scale may segregate, break down, or pick up moisture during large-scale handling

Designing around these risks early means careful ingredient selection, stress-testing at bench and pilot scale, evaluating multiple ingredient lots, checking ingredient compatibility, and applying pre-blending strategies for low-dose components. A robust formulation will be thoroughly tested early on, and far more likely to behave as expected at full scale.

We’ve recently introduced Westpro’s BioactiveMAX™ spray-dried Lactoferrin, alongside our traditional freeze-dried format. What should formulators consider when choosing between the two?

The main differences between the two relate to particle size and shape.

Freeze-dried lactoferrin has larger, irregular, angular particles, which can appear as pinkish or sparkly specks in pale powder blends. This can be desirable in some markets for visual identification, while in others it may be a drawback. The irregular particle shape also provides good flow properties, which can simplify handling and filling operations.

Spray-dried lactoferrin consists of smaller, more uniform, spherical particles that are paler in colour. This allows the powder to blend more evenly and be less visible in light-coloured formulations. However, the smaller particle size can increase the tendency to adhere to processing equipment if appropriate controls aren’t in place.

The key is prioritising which attributes matter most – appearance, flow, functionality, or process behaviour – and choosing the format that best fits the product’s needs.

Do you have a hobby that unexpectedly makes you a better scientist?

A relatively new hobby – sparked by our company’s strong cultural links with China – has been the game of Go (its Western name), or Weiqi in Chinese. The game originated in ancient China, with most historians dating it back an incredible 2,500-4,000 years and probably the oldest board game still being played in its original form today.

In Go, every move reshapes the entire board – sometimes dozens of moves later. That maps beautifully onto early phase research and product development, where changing one variable influences everything else through interactions and tradeoffs. It’s been a surprisingly fun way to sharpen systems thinking skills.