Cargill showcases it sugar- and salt-reduction innovations
Cargill demonstrated a host of solutions at FiE 2019 offering to help food manufacturers cut sugar from products while keeping the taste and texture familiar with consumers.
These innovations have wide-ranging applications. For example, the ingredients giant showed its new Gerkens CT70 cocoa powder, which it said delivers a ‘complete sensorial experience to consumers of baked goods’. The power – perfect in products such as brownies -- offers a true chocolate smell and taste in application, as well as an appetising red-brown colour, it added. The powder has less than 7% alkalising agents - assuming no other ingredient in the recipe contains alkalising agent, then no declaration on the label is needed from that perspective.
The company also demonstrated its IY34 clean label baking fat that contains 30% lower saturated fatty acids vs butter and trans fatty acids below 1%. It also made a ‘Twice as Good’ sandwich biscuit with its WheatWise micronized natural wheat bran, allowing it to cut the biscuits’ sugar and cocoa-based filling by 20%. It also created ‘guilt-free ice cream’ boasting an 80% reduction in sugar and 30% reduction in calories via its combination of sweeteners (ViaTech stevia leaf extract, CMaltidex maltitol syrup and Zerose erythritol) and stabilsers.
“When it comes to the bakery market, indulgence and great taste remain key, despite consumers’ increasing desire for healthier and cleaner options,” said Cargill. “The challenge for bakery manufacturers is to deliver label-friendliness and more permissible indulgence, via sugar reduction or fibre enrichment for example, while maintaining a delicious taste and an exciting texture.”
In the snacking space, Cargill showcased its Alberger Flour Salt, which is made up of tiny, multi-faceted crystals that were created through a proprietary, open-pan evaporation process that forms this uniquely shaped salt. This product, it said, can assist snacking manufacturers achieve a 30% salt reduction alternative with no impact on flavour, while also remaining label-friendly. This is because the crystals have a larger surface area and lower bulk density compared to other cube-shaped granulated salts, it explained.
Cargill set up a food and drink market at FiE to demonstrate its application expertise. “We’ve created 17 different prototypes each targeting different specific needs that we’ve identified from label-friendly sauces or sugar and sodium reduction,” explained Cargill Marketing Communications Manager René Berendse.
“We’re taking an outside-in approach. The benefit of Cargill is probably its broad portfolio but its not just the ingredients we have. What we’ve done here is we also develop the insights and combine that with the reformulation expertise we have. Around the globe we have over 2,000 people in R&D. That’s a blessing because not only do they know about single ingredients, a lot of those folks know how ingredients interact and that’s how you get into an interesting discussion which is very close to the heart of the typical FiE visitor. We might have people coming to our stand looking to reduce calories in cupcakes. And at those stands we have people with a passion for making those formulations and show them the work that we’re able to do.”
Pic: Getty/GrahamParton