Mane goes Native again with new seafood flavours
The announcement of Mane Native Seafood follows the introduction of the first Mane Native offering, covering 36 vegetable and herb flavours, in September last year. This collection has just been awarded the Trophée de l'Innovation des PAI et des Ingrédients at the CFIA trade show in Rennes, France.
In the wake of this, Mane is now looking to make waves in the seafood realm. It has a long history of working with fish and seafood, but Eric Davedeau, R&D director, told FoodNavigator.com it has “reinvented” the way it produces fishy flavours.
There are 18 flavour profiles in new collection, representing different ways of cooking fish, crustacean and shellfish species. They include boiled swimming crab, grilled shrimp, poached salmon, steamed mussel, grilled lobster and sautéed scallop.
Each one comes in two versions: Native Plus, which is 95 percent from the named food (95-5); and Native, which is 51 per cent from the named food and 49 per cent different flavour preparations and substances in a natural form.
The flavours are not suitable for people with fish or seafood allergies, but Davodeau explained that there is no cross-species sourcing. “In the lobster flavours there is no shrimp, for instance,” he said, “which is something you do see in the industry.”
The new range was in development for 6 months, but R&D was helped considerably by the fact that Mane has a long history of extracting seafood ingredients. Made using Mane’s in-house technologies of enzymatic hydrolysis, extrusion, cooling & concentration, and CO2 extraction, the flavours are particularly suitable for use in ready meals, soups, sauces and stocks. They are said to be extremely stable in frozen and canned foods.
The flavours are geared to delivering the full-bodied flavour experience known as Kokumi, which means ‘yummy’ in Japanese. Kokumi consists of three flavour sensations: punch, the initial taste or impact; mildness and balance, which is the rounding out of the flavour; and the long-lasting continuity.
Transparent sourcing
Davodeau said the fish and seafood used in the range are sourced mostly in Europe (in particular the Brittany region of France) but a few come from Canada.
Moreover the company does not always extract flavour preparations from whole creatures but uses co-products of the food industry that “have a lot of taste and aromatic compounds”.
In the case of crab, swimming crab, Nordic shrimp and mackerel it uses the whole animal; for lobster and spiny lobster it uses the cephalotorax, for scampi the head and legs, and for mussels, scallops, salmon and white fish it uses the flesh or coral.
Some 4kgof Nordic shrimp are typically used to produce 1kg of grilled shrimp flavour. When it comes to edible crab, 5.4kg are needed per 1kg of flavour; and for salmon, 1.2kg are needed.
Customers are told what animal has been used to make the flavour, what part of the animal, and where it is from.
New regulations
In developing its Mane Native collections, which are tipped to include meat and dairy flavours in the future, Mane has been influenced by the new flavour regulation. Under the new rules, which come into effect in January 2011, 95 per cent of a flavour needs to come from a certain food in order for it to be called ‘natural [food x] flavour’.
