Our novel concept is to develop a low-fat cheese processing technology to enable the production of low-fat Mozzarella-type ingredient cheese with superior texture, flavour and melting qualities. The newly developed low-fat cheese will be suitable for use in pizzas, ready meals, fast food, sandwiches and salads. Our primary target markets are the industrial cheese sector for chilled and frozen pizzas and ready meals. We will also target the retail and foodservices sectors.We propose to develop a Mozzarella-type cheese with <3% fat which is a significant improvement on the currently available 5% fat cheese. Reduced (12% fat) and lower fat content Mozzarella-type cheese are currently available on the market but with very poor qualities of flavour, texture and melting, widely prevents them from consumer acceptance. Therefore we will introduce new innovative starter cultures for improving the flavour and texture of low-fat Mozzarella-type cheeses and optimize appropriate processing conditions of temperature, pH, milk fat and casein-to-fat ratio in the milk. Furthermore, we will develop an innovative oil coating process for improving the meltdown of the low-fat cheese after it is shredded in the meal in preparation. Based on the scientific findings of the coating process, we will then develop an oil coating device which will successfully coat cheese shreds.We will enhance our knowledge of starter cultures and oil coating of cheese and hence provide the end consumer with a cheese displaying desired texture, flavour and melting profiles. We strongly believe that our technology will help the European cheesemaking industry which is facing the threat of losing a significant proportion of its market as a result of European legislation which calls for limiting saturated and trans fat content both in cheese and cheese-based products.