When eating, all five senses are engaged sight, smell, taste, touch, and even hearing. The stimulating sight and tantalising aroma of a steaming bowl of soupy noodles, the first bite sunk into springy noodles, the sound of delighted slurps and the intense flavour of broth. When all five senses are stimulated, it forms a total experience of enjoyment that leaves a positive and lasting impression.
Traditionally, product development was centered on optimising the flavour and aroma attributes of food. But increasingly, texture is being recognised as an indispensable attribute that influences consumer food acceptance. For example, consumers expect cornflakes to be crunchy, noodles to be springy, the cheese on pizzas to be stretchy, and milky drinks to be rich and full-bodied. From this, it has become clear that texture forms the backbone of the taste experience, and plays a key contributing role to the taste of a product.
Conveying authenticity through texture
Consumers are also increasingly expecting authenticity and home- made or restaurant-quality from the products they buy. But often, processed foods do not retain the same authenticity of the original cuisine.
This is especially true for fruit and vegetable based items. A canned tomato soup which is flat, watery and thin, or a fruit smoothie which lacks richness and body, is likely to disappoint.
Many food and beverages are made industrially with dry or powdered ingredients because of the many complications of buying, handling and processing fresh, perishable ones all of which have the potential to increase costs and negatively impact texture and end product quality. However, dry ingredients also inevitably do not provide the same body and texture and therefore may not be favoured by consumers.
Enhancing pulpy textures enhancing the pulpy texture of sauces, soups, dressings, fruit beverages and dairy desserts and fruit-filled baked goods can be the difference between success and failure. Further- more, some high moisture products, such as beverages and sauces can also be significantly improved with the added indulgence of extra pulpiness inspiring consumers and encouraging repeat purchase.
In order to provide a solution, Ingredion has come up with a series of pregelatinised modified food starches or texturisers, known as TEXTAID. This versatile tool kit serves to enhance the quality and consumer appeal of a broad range of fruit and vegetable-enriched products. For example, in a situation where a food manufacturer aims to develop a fruit flavoured smoothie powder mix for a range of slimming products, with the toolkit, it is possible to create a rich and thick fruit smoothie, similar to that of the original smoothie. Or if the aim was to develop an instant soup, such as corn soup, it would be a breeze to create an authentic, pulpy texture, similar to that made at home or served in a restaurant.
Acting as pulp-enhancing ingredi- ents, starches can be used in recipes in a range of end product applications including beverages, savory soups and bakery fillings. Used as thickeners or stabilisers, specialty functional starches can closely mimic essential texture, performance and shelf-life properties. By combining reformulation expertise with a diverse range of functional ingredients, product developers can focus on maintaining quality and visual appeal.
In a practical application, if a manufacturer’s goal is to create a deliciously creamy, rich and fruity smoothie that mimics the pulpiness of those that are home-made, this toolkit can be applied. It can be used to seamlessly blend sophisticated flavours berry smoothie. With this capability, manufacturers are able to achieve a winning balance of cost, quality and speed to market.
Creating the best for less Alongside getting the quality right and differentiating a product from the competition, affordability is one of the top three challenges for food formulators today. Imagine being able to increase margins, add a price-reduction or front-of-pack claim, by creating better products more efficiently. This is why successful food formulation has to be as much about preserving or main- taining superior texture, taste and other sensory and functional characteristics, as it is about optimising recipe costs. Achieving savings in manufacturing must lead to better outcomes.
This is where Ingredient Idea Labs innovation centers come in. With the range of ingredients and the help of the experts, food formulators can overcome the challenges of cost savings while preserving and even improving the quality of their products. Ingredient believes that the best approach to meeting the affordability trend is a holistic one considering all elements at once, and aims to optimise not only recipe costs, but also manufacturing and operational expenses and speed to market.
Feel of what they’re eating unless it is inferior, when it can heavily impact their experience and perceptions of a product or brand. This is why food texture optimisation is a key area of focus in modern food formulation and development.
Ingredient’s DIAL-IN texture technology a five step process that combines proprietary consumer insights and sensory analytics with deep formulation and process expertise helps customers to eliminate trial and error, speeding up their time to market and saving them time and money. It takes a thorough, data-driven approach to understand consumer perceptions of texture and subsequently use this insight as a basis for new product or existing product development. From converting consumer language to sensory and rheological language, to finalising the formulation of a texture solution, Ingredient’s comprehensive approach to texture optimisation and enhancement enables customers to achieve the product texture they want in a fraction of the time that it traditionally takes.
The role of culinary insights when developing a new product concept or reinventing an existing product, having your finger on the pulse of food trends is necessary. At Ingredient, customers are provided with key culinary and consumer insights elop market-relevant concepts. OLOGY is the blending of culirts and the science of food. The age between food and culinary science results in the emergence of exciting, innovative ideas and con- cepts that challenge convention and push boundaries. Most importantly, the concepts are scalable and can be transformed into successful, market- able products.
It is clear that texture plays a central role in the success of new product launches. Creating exciting and authentic textures that appeal to consumers and enhancing texture when reducing cost are two product development strategies that are worth considering.
Whether the goal is to create delicious baked goods with far fewer costly eggs, build back texture when replacing dairy fats and solids in creamy, smooth yogurts and other dairy and dairy-based products, optimising protein in processed and analogue cheese in order to build back firmness, shredding and melting textures, or keeping beverage creamers affordable with encapsulation and emulsion technology, the possibilities for innovation are endless. If used correctly as a food development tool, texture has the potential to help overcome many of the cost challenges facing food manufacturers today.