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Lycored to focus on clean label at FiE

19 Nov 2015

Dry Tomato Pulp – a new ingredient - makes its debut at this year’s Fi Europe. It is said to combine an authentically fresh and vibrant red colour with a stable texture for red sauces (including pasta sauces), ketchups and soups.

Clean-label remains one of the key mega-trends in the food and beverage industry – but consumers are increasingly seeking out products made with ingredients that are familiar as well as natural, according to Lycored.

This desire for more transparency is leading to a massive upsurge in clearer labelling, says Lycored, with Innova Market Insights identifying a shift from ‘clean to clear’ as the top labelling trend for 2015.

Lycored says it is offering food manufacturers the opportunity to harness this trend with its range of Real Food Ingredients that deliver taste and texture improvement in a wide range of applications. Produced from 100% tomato, Lycored’s Real Food Ingredients are said to make it possible to use simple label declarations that all consumers will recognise. Depending on local regulations, this includes straightforward statements such as ‘Tomato Concentrate’ or ‘Crushed Tomatoes’.

Solutions in the range include:

Dry Tomato Pulp – a new ingredient, making its debut at this year’s Fi Europe, that is said to combine an authentically fresh and vibrant red colour with a stable texture for red sauces (including pasta sauces), ketchups and soups. Dry Tomato Pulp does not turn brown, and is claimed to be ideal for achieving colour consistency when facing variations caused by seasonality in tomato crops. It also works well as a natural colourant and texture improver in meat-based products such as sausages, in which many food colourants or starches are not permitted.

SANTE – a taste enhancer that 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. Lycored says that SANTE enables product formulators to create deliciousness naturally and reduce levels of ingredients that can be unattractive on the label, such as salt, MSG and yeast.

These ingredients, and others, will be presented by Lycored at the forthcoming Fi Europe exhibition, which takes place in Paris from 1-3 December 2015. The theme on the stand will be: ‘Sharing nature’s wonder – from our garden to your kitchen’, which the company says highlights how Lycored enables manufacturers to use ingredients from nature to create better-for-you products with labels that are both clean and clear.

“Clean label has been a major trend in the food industry for the past decade, with food and beverage manufacturers keen to highlight that their products are free from synthetic ingredients and additives. But today’s consumers are looking for more,” said Christiane Lippert, Marketing Manager at Lycored. “They want to know what is in their food, not just what isn’t. They want their food to be made of recognisable natural ingredients and they want to know where those ingredients came from.”

Lycored will also showcase its range of natural red, orange and yellow colours. Certified Kosher, Halal, non-GMO and vegetarian, Lycored’s natural colours are claimed to overcome the most common technical problems with natural colours by delivering heat, light and pH stability, with no migration or bleed. Available in the Lycored natural colourings range are two core offerings:

Tomat-O-Red – a colour created using tomato-derived lycopene, which Lycored says offers a more technically sound red colouring alternative to unstable beetroot and anthocyanins, as well as carmine, which is not vegetarian-friendly. It is described as perfect for use in fruit preparations, dairy products, confectionery, meat, baked goods and beverages. According to research by Canadean, lycopene is considered a key healthy red component of products by 38% of consumers who pay attention to the link between colour and nutrition – significantly more than for other natural red colours, such as beetroot (32%).

Lyc-O-Beta – sourced from Blakeslea trispora, this is a beta-carotene-rich, allergen-free natural fungus cultivated by Lycored. Natural beta-carotene extracted from Blakeslea Trispora offers a spectrum of yellow to orange shades for use in bakery fillings, confectionery, dairy products and beverages.