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Lycored showcases sodium reduction

7 Jul 2016

Lycored has teamed with chef Tony Lagana to demonstrate how salt in manufacturing formulas can be reduced by more than 60% without comprising on quality or tatse or sacrificing a clean label.

The FDA’s proposed sodium reduction targets will be challenging for US food manufacturers to achieve but are nothing to panic about, according to one of America’s leading product development experts.

Earlier this month, the FDA issued draft guidance on the voluntary reduction of sodium levels in processed and prepared foods. It said that Americans consume almost 50% more sodium than is recommended, and suggested cross-category short and long-term goals for sodium reduction to address this.

In the wake of the FDA’s announcement, Lycored has joined forces with chef Tony Lagana, the President of Culinary Systems, who is nicknamed ‘the new product guru’. He will be showcasing how food manufacturers and foodservice companies can use ‘real food’ ingredients to reduce the salt in their manufacturing formulas by more than 60% without comprising on quality or sacrificing a clean label. This can be achieved without any need for ingredients such as MSG, I+G, IMP and hydrolysed vegetable proteins, which Lycored notes are unappealing to today’s consumers.

“When the FDA’s draft targets were published you could hear a sharp intake of breath across the food industry,” said Lagana. “And while there will undoubtedly be plenty of work to do once the targets have been agreed, it’s important not to panic. In fact there’s already a lot that manufacturers and foodservice companies can do right now to reduce sodium. I’ll be demonstrating how Lycored’s ingredients can make this an easy and straightforward task.”

Lagana has developed sauces and dressings that contain over 60% less salt than typical standard products. Among the ingredients he will be using is Lycored’s SANTE, a natural taste enhancer derived from tomatoes. SANTE provides a high concentration of the natural compounds that produce umami (the fifth taste) and kokumi (the Japanese word for deliciousness) to accentuate existing flavour characteristics while remaining taste neutral. It enables product formulators to create deliciousness naturally, Lycored claims, and avoid ingredients that are undesirable on the label.

In addition to the taste enhancement solutions presented by Lagana, Lycored is showcasing Dry Tomato Pulp (DTP), a 100% natural real food ingredient from tomato that can be declared on the label simply as ‘Tomato’. It is claimed to add a fresh, consistent red colour to sauces (including pasta sauces), condiments, soups, ready meals, and processed meats with no risk of turning brown like some other colorants. In addition, Lycored says it also provides an authentic cooked-from-scratch texture and healthy fibre content.

Lycored is also featuring Lyco-Fibers, which it says enable product formulators to modify the pulpiness, viscosity and mouthfeel of sauces, soups and meat products naturally. Not only do Lyco-Fibers deliver a cleaner label, Lycored notes, but they also carry the positive benefit of fibre content. Their high stability is claimed to mean that they do not undergo syneresis when used in sauces. In addition, while alternative stabilisers such as gums and starches can lead to a slimy consistency, Lycored says that Lyco-Fibers deliver an authentic vegetable fibre texture. They are also claimed to improve the juiciness of meat products and prevent burning of the meat when barbecuing.