Go back five or 10 years and healthy and functional ingredients suppliers were targeting “fanatics and disciples”, says Hubertus Devroye at soy supplier The Solae Company. “Not any more. The marketing is changing very fast. It’s not about treating illness and disease anymore. It’s about investing in daily health. We’re asking people: ‘What do you know about the goodness of soy, or wholegrain?’ not: ‘Can we treat your disease’.”
But given that every Tom, Dick and Harry is jumping on the nutritional foods bandwagon, you can expect a short meeting with a buyer if you start waxing lyrical about ingredient X without some serious clinical research behind you and the right product proposition, he says.
Likewise, adding omega-3 or plant sterols to a chocolate brownie, crisps, fudge or a cooking sauce just because you can, doesn’t make it a good idea, says Jerry Luff, executive vice president of Nu-Mega Ingredients.
Besides, if the nutrient profiling clause remains in the final draft of the proposed European nutrition and health claims legislation, manufacturers will in any case be prevented from making positive health claims about ingredients in products that are deemed to be ‘unhealthy’ overall, he points out.
While some foods might be more suitable vehicles for delivering vital nutrients than others, there is no reason why we shouldn’t see some of the sexier ingredients spreading beyond dairy, juice and cereals, however. “Products containing omega-3 can attract a 12-15% premium at retail level, so it’s hardly surprising that almost every section of the industry has been in touch with us,” he adds.
Weight management
If ingredients enabling manufacturers to replace salt, sugar and fat are currently driving the market, the big money is on ingredients that stop people eating as much, claims Rob Minnee, business manager for weight management at ingredients giant DSM.
This is not about glycaemic index (GI), or carbohydrate metabolism, he stresses. “It’s a trick you are playing on your body. Our Fabuless product is a combination of palm and oat oils, which are fractionated and formulated into an emulsion that is clinically proven to lower calorie intake. When digestion starts at a very late stage, your body identifies a relatively high level of undigested fat and consequently suppresses its hunger signals.”
The upshot of all this is that people who eat Fabuless at lunch eat less at lunch and at dinner, 12-30% less to be precise, which is what is getting his customers so excited, he claims. “Look in any supermarket and there are scores of brands that are low-fat, low-calorie and low-sugar. You won’t win that battle. You have to have something different. This is it.”
With four published clinical trials proving its efficacy, Minnee says he is confident that registering a new health claim about Fabuless under a stricter European health and nutrition claims regime should not be a problem.
The first product using Fabuless is a drinking yoghurt from Italian firm Latteria Merano, which retails at twice the price of a pro-biotic yoghurt drink. However, UK manufacturers are also extremely interested, he claims. “We’ll look at other foods but the focus is on dairy because of the image and application fit.”
A different form of weight management ingredient from speciality chemicals and nutritional ingredients firm Cognis is also generating interest from manufacturers wanting to offer something more than fat or sugar replacement.
Clinical trials show that Tonalin conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), derived from safflower oil can help overweight people reduce body fat and maintain lean muscle mass by decreasing the amount of fat stored after eating and encouraging the body to draw on existing fat reserves instead, claims a spokeswoman. “There has been a lot of interest from food manufacturers, not least because Tonalin is so flexible. It comes as a water dispersible powder or oil and can work in nutrition bars, chocolate and milk and juice ranges and supplements.”
fat attack
While functional ingredients are getting all the column inches, with annual growth predicted to top 10% between 2004 and 2007 (Leatherhead Food International), fat replacers are not far behind at 6.3%, followed by antioxidants at 3.9% and emulsifiers and preservatives at 3.5% apiece.
Given that fat, sugar and salt levels are rapidly switching from the back to the front of the pack when it comes to labelling, reducing them is top of the priority list for most manufacturers, says S Black’s marketing manager Gillian Berry. “We are seeing strong demand for our salt alternative Mycosent [a natural flavouring derived from myco-protein] from suppliers of ready meals, cooking sauces and savoury snacks.Customers using Mycosent have been able to reduce sodium by more than 50% in sauces and ready meals, up to 50% in biscuits, and up to 40% in spreads, soups, crisps, snacks and bread.”
Alison Day, technical sales manager at Mastertaste, which has developed a range of flavour enhancers to replace salt in sauces, ready meals and snacks, adds: “For all the interest in so-called functional foods, salt replacement remains the Holy Grail in savoury food flavourings. Doing it is not hard. Doing it cost effectively is the problem. Wet sauces are particularly difficult.”
Alan English, technical manager at the Low Sodium Sea Salt Company, which makes the Solo sea salt range, adds: “We’re seeing the biggest demand in ready meals. People will often use half salt and half Solo, which uses magnesium and potassium, and isn’t as bitter as some salt alternatives on the market.” It is also more hygroscopic [absorbs moisture from its surroundings] than ordinary salt, which makes it of interest to bakers as it reduces the proving time of dough, he adds.
Replicating that salty taste is also high up the priority list at ICI subsidiary and flavour creation specialist Quest, which has spent 10 years perfecting its ImpaQ Taste Technology range of flavours that enables manufacturers to dramatically reduce fat, sugar and salt in products without compromising taste, says Harry Renes, executive flavourist.
“Our most significant step forward came with research into meat bouillons and mature cheeses, aimed at identifying the key flavour components that make these foodstuffs taste delicious.” Quest’s research has led to patent submissions for more than 35 new molecules, he says. “This gave us insights into how we can use flavours to influence perceptions of taste.”
The ultimate in multi-functional healthy ingredients however, remains inulin, a naturally occurring non-digestible carbohydrate found in plants such as chicory roots and artichokes. A low-calorie replacement for fat in spreads, baked goods, fillings, dairy products, frozen desserts and dressings, it is also a great source of dietary fibre. It is a natural prebiotic that stimulates the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut, proven to boost calcium absorption and retention and believed to prevent precancerous changes in the colon. As it is not digested until it reaches the large intestine, it is also in demand for low GI products.
Leading supplier Orafti is opening a second factory in Chile to extract inulin from chicory roots next year, and is seeing growing interest from companies interested in its prebiotic qualities, says Christine Nicolay, communications and marketing services manager.
More generally, she claims, the growth of ingredients like inulin is contributing towards a shift in the market from ‘light’ to ‘healthy’, a trend also seen by Sensus, another major supplier of inulin-based ingredients through its Frutafit and Frutalose ranges.
While manufacturers are using inulin and oligofructose as a sugar and fat replacer for low-fat or low-calorie variants of more indulgent products, they are increasingly latching onto their functional qualities, says a spokesman.
“We are seeing a growth in formulation of inulin purely for its nutritional health aspects, with customers making claims such as, ‘boost friendly bacteria’, ‘white bread with as much fibre as brown bread’, ‘improves intestinal health’ or ‘enriched with fibres’.” FM