The evolving reformulation of ingredients

Demand for new formulations

To reflect modern-day food preferences, the creation of both innovative products and reformulations of existing ones has become a hot topic. Industry is investing heavily in recipes to meet the needs of demanding consumers and to keep ahead of the competition. In recent years, there has been much focus on developing products with healthier ingredients that can be given ‘cleaner’ labels. Natural products have grown significantly in popularity, as have those supporting free-from claims. But beyond the reduction of potentially harmful ingredients such as trans fats and salt, the latest food trends are more adventurous, high-performing and cause-driven. With the demand for new flavour fusions, bold colours, responsibly-sourced, plant-based ingredients and functional foods, or ‘nutraceuticals’, requirements for new ingredient formulations have grown considerably.

Formulators are being challenged to find new approaches and original raw ingredients in order to meet briefs from food manufacturers with high expectations. Working with a huge network of raw ingredient suppliers with access to a vast number of constituents, formulators draw upon extensive application and technological know-how to deliver excellence in nutrition, taste, sensory feel and shelf life. In addition to ingredient performance, formulators are under pressure to ensure fast delivery, cost efficiency and provide solutions in a stable and convenient form.

Trends

Sugar reduction

While there has been much publicity around sugar reduction, it remains the ‘cause de jour’ from a health perspective, and Danilo Seabra, Global Marketing Head from one of the leading food ingredient formulators, Clariant, confirms this: “Sugar reduction is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges for the food and beverage industry currently, and there is a need to offer state-of-the-art solutions to reduce sugar naturally”.

Along with brightly coloured foods, jet-black desserts are becoming more common, but manufacturers are quick to note that there should not be a trade off between aesthetics and healthy contents

In a bid to fight epidemics in obesity, many consumers are seeking food and beverage options containing less sugar, with governments upping their role through public awareness campaigns and industry levies. In order to align their products with new thinking surrounding the reliance on sugar for imparting sweetness and to protect revenue streams, food manufacturers are having to adapt and are looking to ingredient formulators to replace sugar with healthier, natural alternatives without altering a product’s taste and texture.

A variety of ingredients created from stevia leaves have heralded the introduction of countless lower calorie products. The constituents that give stevia its sweetness – steviol glycosides – have 200-300 times the sweetness of sugar. However, there are many types of stevia plant as well as different glycosides, some of which can impart bitterness and aftertaste such as the commonly used rebaudioside A. As such, R&D into improved stevia formulations continues, particularly around glycosides known as rebaudiosides D and M, which do not deliver bitterness.

However, as Seabra points out, rebaudiosides D and M are only very small components of the stevia leaf; hence their scarcity and high cost means the industry mainly focuses on first-generation stevia made from rebaudioside A and other steviol glycosides.

“The focus now for us at Clariant is the formulation of what we call second generation stevia, which has similar sweetening performance to rebaudiosides D and M and sensory profiles much closer to sugar,” Seabra said. “As well as avoiding any bitterness, it has excellent solubility and gives a very sugar-like flavour to food manufacturers’ end products.”

Plant-based

Seabra also expects demand for plant-based foods to continue its growth as increasing numbers of consumers are incorporating meat alternatives into their diets. With the increasing awareness of how current levels of animal-based agriculture is taxing the world’s natural resources and contributing to climate change, the rise of vegetarianism, veganism and a more flexitarian lifestyle has seen food manufacturing companies investing more in plant-based proteins and ingredients to improve taste and texture.

Multi-coloured, glittery and rainbow-themed ‘Frappuccinos’ and milkshakes have been rising in popularity

Beyond sustainability and health concerns, Seabra also points out that there are a growing number of consumers who simply prefer the taste of plant-based products. This essentially creates two markets among the new plant-based eating groups: those who appreciate meat’s sensory attributes but seek meat- and dairy-like alternatives that mimic the texture and flavour of animal products, and those who enjoy a completely meatless and dairy-free experience. Seabra sees the industry moving in both directions, with each category benefitting from naturally-derived ingredient formulations to improve nutritional and sensory value – from increased protein and fibre to improved taste and mouth feel.

In the beverage industry, the move towards plant-based dairy alternatives, such as almond, soy and oat ‘milk’, affords ingredient formulators the opportunity to improve nutritional features – especially through added protein and calcium – as well as the taste experience of those products. Seabra believes that such products are the perfect solution for milk intolerants or simply for consumers seeking healthy and tasty milk alternatives.

Food as medicine

A further food trend – food as medicine – is a well-established concept that has been practiced in Chinese and Ayurvedic healing traditions for centuries. As part of this slowly growing trend in western countries over the past few years, there has recently been a surge of interest in gut health. This has led to a proliferation of food and beverage products enhanced with nutritional ingredient formulations including probiotics and adaptogens – herbs and roots such as turmeric, ginger, ginseng and tulsi that have traditionally been used to improve digestion or combat a variety of stressors. Even cannabis derivatives such as Cannabidiol (CBD) may offer new functional characteristics to food products including medicinal benefits as pain relief.

Appearance

Aside from the nutritional qualities of new food ingredients, a big trend in food is bold colour. Today, food needs to be ‘instagrammable’, with restaurateurs, amateur bakers and consumers alike wanting to post highly distinctive and aspirational food and beverage concoctions onto social media. Audacious, bright, but naturally-created colours continue to be an interesting trend, with mainstream brands riding the movement with multi-coloured, glittery unicorn-themed ‘Frappuccinos’, milkshakes and rainbowed multi-layered cakes. Social media channels are awash with unflinchingly garish coloured food.

Hot on the heels of the unicorn and rainbow trend has been jet-black coloured foods – particularly in the bakery and desserts sector, covering cupcakes to ice cream. Food manufacturers are quick to highlight that tapping into the colour trend should not mean trading healthy for pretty, so the role of ingredient formulators is to enable food manufacturers to distinguish their products by combining creativity and fun with healthy, natural ingredients.

The future

While consumers are increasingly aware of the composition of what they eat and drink, many remain cautious about new ingredients, which might depart drastically from what they are used to. However, it is anticipated that in the future, certain cultural barriers will have to be overcome to ensure a more sustainable world. Ingredient formulators are already well on the way to developing innovative protein-based products that balance taste, function and nutrition, but have traditionally not been part of the western diet.

An increasing body of evidence points to the valuable role of insects in the diets of both people and animals. With higher nutrient content – more protein, vitamins, minerals, fibre and fatty acids per gram – compared to that of meat, insects are anticipated to be the superfood of the future. Seabra agrees: “From a protein-based, sustainability and price-consistency viewpoint, the health and cost benefits of entomophagy, the practice of eating insects, are evident”. She continued; “With plant-based meat alternatives already taking off, consuming insects will also go mainstream and be part of our future diet. It is also a healthy alternative for the planet, as insects convert plant protein into animal protein and sustainable methods can be used to farm and harvest them.”

Consumed over thousands of years in South East Asia, the Far East and Mexico, insect constituents are now increasingly being introduced as ingredients in western food recipes – although it should be said that most are incorporated as ‘invisible’ ingredients, under the form of flours, powders, protein extracts or gelling agents.