The food industry is undergoing a delicious transformation as major players invest in research and development to discover innovative alternatives to traditional additives. These alternatives play a crucial role in ensuring the quality and food stability, enhancing cloudiness, and preserving the irresistible natural flavours and colors of our favorite foods.
The Evolution towards Clean-Label Foods
Responding to the growing global trend of clean-label foods, the industry is passionately seeking natural and healthy solutions for preserving, flavouring, and texturizing food products. This shift towards clean label foods is a direct response to the increasing demand for more natural processes and ingredients across all corners of the food world.
Transforming Ice Cream with Natural Ingredients
Step into the world of ice cream, where recent developments highlight a shift towards a clean-label approach. Manufacturers are embracing more natural ingredients in both flavour and production methods to maintain the traditional food stability and natural hues we all love.
One innovative solution is locust bean gum (LBG), a natural thickening and stabilizing agent derived from the seeds of the carob tree. It is used for its ability to enhance texture and stability in various products, and serves as a clean-label alternative for improving viscosity in items like ice creams, dairy products, dressings, and sauces. Yet, challenges in its availability have led to the exploration of alternatives like mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids and guar gum, preserving the coveted clean-label status while also cutting production costs.
Natural Solutions for Beverage Innovation
New ingredients – proteins, flavours and stabilizers have been added with excitement into the quest to enhance cloudiness in beverages. From hemp protein and rice starch to Stevia sweetening dairy products, and calcium enhancements for non-dairy beverages, these natural marvels not only provide improvement in the stability of the mixture but also offer perfect cloudiness in the end taste.
With regards to the dairy and non-dairy beverages field novelty, these may be in the form of the use of plant-based glycerol and refined pinewood rosin as markers and clouding agents. The hemp protein comes from the healthy part of the cashew, the hemp heart. Given its benefits for cardiovascular health, it has become increasingly fashionable in the food industry while still ensuring a lack of taste issues and the usual deterioration affecting some plant proteins.
Conclusion
The move to ‘clean-label’ foods is not just any movement, it is a flavour revolution transforming the food production industry. Still making continuous innovations, the industry is on its way towards addressing the need to provide healthy and natural foods, presenting mouth watering and tempting products and developing them further year after year. It is time to savor these natural solutions as we start a journey that is both delicious and nutritious!
