Page 18 - Food&Drink Business Magazine June 2019

INGREDIENTS
✷ HEALTHIER CHOC
In response to growing consumer demand for less sugar and fewer artificial colours and additives, Callebaut has released a new milk chocolate, Ecl1pse. The chocolate has only one per cent sugar and no artificial additives.
Callebaut’s Australian importer is F Mayer. Its chocolate division manager Gary Willis says Ecl1pse adds a new chocolate to the Callebaut range that doesn’t skimp on quality or flavour. Developed in its Belgian facility, Exl1pse is the first new flavour release since the company launched Ruby RB1 in 2017.
“This genuine Belgian milk chocolate has around twice the milk and cocoa content compared to regular milk chocolate.
“It’s darker, smoother, more intense, and creamier than any other milk chocolate while embodying a natural taste that is still delicate and sweet,” Willis told Food & Drink Business.
He says the new addition to the professional chocolate landscape will allow food manufacturers to reinvent their menus and product offerings, whilst responding to consumer demands for healthier and more natural desserts and pastry options.
Clean label flour market on the rise
Growing consumer knowledge on ingredients and healthy eating is increasing demand for minimally processed ingredients. Kim Berry reports.
A FUTURE Market Insights (FMI) report released at the end of May estimates the global clean label flour market to be worth US$2.2 billion, with a CAGR of 6.2 per cent.
In baking, a clean label, is the ability to produce a product without chemicals, or with a simple ingredient label, so minimally processed, no chemicals, artificial preservatives, colours or flavours.
According to FMI clean label is “emerging as the new norm when it comes to food and beverages and the market is undergoing a paradigm shift in its working. People are more focused on labels, ingredients, and production methods. Consumers are more focused on achieving overall health in multiple ways.”
FMI says the clean label flour market is highly competitive and well saturated. As a result companies are following the trend to invent new clean label flours to “stay ahead”. More than 50 brands have emerged in the European market in the past three years. But east Asia
and south Asia are “by far the more striking regions” for the clean label flour market, it says.
Global ingredients supplier Ingredion told Food & Drink Business while flours are highly regarded because of their minimal processing, food manufacturers have issues with native or unmodified flours being unable to match the performance of chemically modified texturisers for prepared baby foods,
soups, ready meals, and processed meat applications.
Ingredion has developed a proprietary technology Novation, in which the starches meet the technical criteria for food ingredients to be considered as natural according to ISO technical specification.
It says its Homecraft range means manufacturers can
use rice flour or tapioca flour labels while achieving the same functionality, stability and shelf life associated with using hydrocolloids, modified starches and other ingredients
not considered clean label. FMI says the growing retail
format of supermarkets and hypermarkets in developing countries as well as marketing to millenials – the most attractive consumer group for clean lable products – is helping the market grow. ✷
Baker’s yeast gives runners
Research by Kerry Group on its Wellmune baker’s yeast beta glucan shows positive health impacts for athletes. By Doris Prodanovic.
MORE than a dozen peer- reviewed clinical studies are hailing the ability of a baker’s yeast beta glucan to strengthen athletes’ immune system post exercise, ingredients and flavour manufacturer Kerry Group says.
Wellmune is designed to reduce the severity and impact of upper respiratory tract
infection (URTI) symptoms associated with intense exercise stress.
The natural immune health ingredient was studied as a drink additive for marathon runners post-race.
Results showed it reduced the severity of URTIs by 19 per cent. Runners also missed fewer post-marathon workouts
compared to the placebo group. Wellmune R&D director Donald Cox says the results are encouraging and provide a greater understanding of how the functional ingredient helps strengthen the immune system.
Wellmune has completed studies across “various life stages, lifestyles and product formats, and this study builds upon
18 | Food&Drink business | June 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au