Trends continuing to dominate 2017 are clean label ingredients and the reduction of ingredients with negative perceptions and impacts on health. Although there are geographical differences with some ingredients, such as sugar, fat is universally being cut. Across the board food innovators and manufacturers are finding ways to use less of it, substitute it, or use healthier alternatives. 

Indulgent foods, desserts, cakes and confectionery are applications wher fat content is usually at its highest. Manufacturers understand that these foods are still in demand, consumers want indulgent foods without the guilt so they must provide healthier solutions to high-fat content. 

As the desserts sector continues its uninterrupted year-on-year growth, according to Innova Market Insights data, Ulrick & Short’s addition to its Delyte range is set to aid dessert manufacturers in the fight against fat – no longer do they have to choose between health and indulgence.

Delyte 9 is particularly effective for dairy-based sweet goods such as custards and creams. What distinguishes Delyte 9 from other fat replacers is that along with decreasing fat content, it also increases indulgence, giving products a luxury feel.

A company spokesperson told journalist: “Delyte 9 differs in that it can remove up to 50 percent of fats with having minimal effect on product integrity or indulgence.”

“Indulgence without the guilt is becoming ever more important in this increasingly health-conscious culture. Also as we have seen with the sugar tax, governments are now taking an active role in making diets healthier and are coming down hard on high fat and high sugar products.”

Abigail Storms, Vice President, Sweetener Platform Innovation at Tate & Lyle told journalist  that consumers are looking for more natural sweetening solutions that help them reduce calories and sugar, rather than specifically fat, but they’re not willing to sacrifice great taste. According to Storms, the most important benefit to a consumer when choosing a sweetener is that it’s, “a good balance of taste and health.” Stevia ranked second highest in this attribute.
 
“High-potency sweeteners are good for adding sweetness back to formulations once sugars are removed. Formulating with more “natural” options, such as stevia, provides the additional benefits of consumer-friendly labeling to the mix. However, some high-potency sweeteners could cause a bitter aftertaste in formulations. Leaning on ingredient partners with strong formulation expertise and extensive portfolio of solutions can arm manufacturers with the resources they need to create extraordinary food options,” she explains.

Targeting saturated fats is also about oil reduction. journalist spoke to Michiel Van Genugten, Global Marketing Leader at Dow Food, Pharma and Medical, who discussed the company’s WELLENCE portfolio. “WELLENCE Food Gums drive food ingredient innovation to provide more flavorful, healthier options with reduced fat and calories.”

WELLENCE can improve and significantly reduce oil and calories focusing on fried foods, foods that are fried either at home or at the manufacturers food factory. “Our technology consists of a very specific coating technology, most of which those fried foods are already coated, so you can use our product as part of the coating, and what the product does is create a barrier for oil,” explains Van Genugten. “If you fry a chicken nugget, for example, the oil doesn’t penetrate as it usually does inside the product during frying, and it also means a lot of the natural moisture will remain in the product itself.”

“With this technology, you get lower oil content of fried foods, lower calories and at the same time a higher yield, which is also important to our customers, you get all of that without really impacting the appearance and the taste of the product, which is critical,” he says.

According to Van Genugten, up to 40 percent calorie reduction has been achieved by using this technology. “We have done many lab trials as well as pilot plant trials for validation of the technology,” he notes. “The US is taking the lead on this but Europe is showing a lot of interest. We are seeing interest from the foodservice chains in the US, particularly those who are supplying school menus and meals. There are stricter and specific guidelines about what is acceptable, in school menus and that has to do with the calorie content of certain foods, so there is a profile of how much fat children can consume, as well as saturated fats, sugar and calories,” he explains.

“So far we have been able to bring some of the products back into the approved category for schools just by reducing the oil and calorie content, so you can imagine that those producers are very happy with that as they are getting to remain listed as a product in school menus and before this innovation it would have been a challenge.”

With over 60 percent of Americans cutting back on foods higher in saturated fats, WELLENCE Smart Fry lowers calories by 30 percent or more without losing the crisp, juicy flavor consumers love. 

Fat replacement is one of the big topics that CFF are also following because their range of functional fiber blends offers solutions for the development of fat replacement in bakery items. According to with Tamina Geiger, MSc Food Technologist, International Product Manager at CFF, the functionalities of these blends offer a good volume and texture, similar to a full-fat product, but with a lower fat content. “We also have solutions focusing on sausages, wher we can replac the fat, using functional fibers,” she says. 

“Our most important applications areas are bakery and meat for fat reduction. With high-fat bakery items, products such as cakes and pastries contain the most fat, breads are not usually very high in fat, so in case of fat or sugar reduction they are more focused on cakes and muffin type products, rather than the whole bakery segment,” she explains. 

“Very high-fat products in meat are usually sausages, so that is what we focus on using our fat reduction fibers, which can also be used in ham or other kinds of products such as mincemeat too,” Geiger notes. 

According to Brigitte Peters, application specialist at Sensus, fat reduction is not the main topic but it is an important one. “Sugar is higher on the agenda than fat, but if you talk about calorie reduction then you must consider and you can reach it faster with fat replacement instead of sugar replacement,” she claims. 

“Fat reduction comes hand in hand with calorie reduction,” says Peter. 

“Inulin can be used in some cereal products and dry bakery products, we find that sugar reduction itself will have quite a big effect on the texture of the products and if you do it in combination with fat reduction it could be better for the final product. Inulin can be used in bakery items, ice cream applications, meats and pastries.”

Peter also notes: “We did some work on low-fat yogurt to obtain the same mouthfeel as a full-fat or medium-fat yogurt. Fat plays such an important role in dairy, because it provides creaminess and that mouthfeel that consumers are looking for.”

“We mainly looked into yogurt, and yogurt drinks and we did quite an extensive study. We found an improvement on the mouthfeel if you take out fat and restore the fat with inulin, in this case, it was a powder that we used. I believe the categories with most potential are dairy and bakery for fat reduction using inulin.”

“With dry applications, we sometimes see that the combination of sugar and fat reduction works better than just sugar reduction, so that could be of interest in the future. Although sugar reduction is the main goal, fat reduction could help to set the texture in the final product and another thing is the types of fat, palm free products are also still of interest that could be interesting to use inulin on those products as well. We don’t have too much experience in that area but we know that it is a topic of interest,” she says.  

We have also developed some recipe development in the margarine area, which could also be used in bakery products as it was fat reduced and then you can also you achieve fat reduction in the final products, if you use those instead of full-fat margarine,” she finalizes.