iConnectHub

Login/Register

WeChat

For more information, follow us on WeChat

Connect

For more information, contact us on WeChat

Email

You can contact us info@ringiertrade.com

Phone

Contact Us

86-21 6289-5533 x 269

Suggestions or Comments

86-20 2885 5256

Top

Achieving desired sweetness and enhanced mouthfeel

Source:Ringier Release Date:2011-09-08 712
Food & Beverage
Add to Favorites
New solutions based on scientific research can lead to the right balance: Reduced-calorie beverages that also taste great

Cargi l l helps speed produc t development of reduced calorie products through the utilisation of its unique prediction capabilities and new texturising components (Photo ? Silencefoto | Dreamstime.com)

 RECENT research has uncovered that the secret to delivering a superior taste experience to consumers of low-calorie drinks is in optimising the balance between texture, sweetness and flavour. When producing reduced-calorie beverages, manufacturers typical ly lower sugar content . To compensate for losing sweetness, it is common to add zero- or mid-calorie high-intensity sweeteners and taste-modifying flavours. Although this effectively addresses the loss of sweetness, the resulting beverage is likely to deliver a thinner mouthfeel and a different taste profile.
"When replacing a nutritive sweetener with a high potency sweetener, the industry has historically focused on the addition of flavours to minimise the taste differences between diet and full calorie beverages, but until now, little innovation has occurred in the area of mouthfeel optimisation," Brian Guthrie, PhD, senior research fellow, Cargill Global Food Research, said at the 2011 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Food Expo in June.
Initial findings from Cargill's multi-year research programme to understand how beverage ingredients interact to affect taste, sweetness and mouthfeel confirm that there is a connection between key mouthfeel sensations and consumers' liking of the beverage. "This study was designed to understand how replacing a nutritive sweetener with a high potency sweetener creates differences in the taste, sweetness and mouthfeel," explained Dr Guthrie. "At Cargill, our hypothesis was that consumer liking of a product is driven by sweetness, flavour and mouthfeel, and the key to creating better-tasting reduced calorie products is to formulate with ingredients that balance all three."
The R&D programme consisted of sensory and consumer testing to understand how beverage ingredients interact to affect taste, sweetness and mouthfeel, and ultimately drive overall consumer liking. It was conducted at the Sensory Science Centre in North Carolina State University, USA. Over the three initial phases of research, a total of 600 diet and regular consumers provided overall liking and attribute liking scores for 18 commercial and numerous prototype lemon-lime soft drinks. Descriptive analysis was also performed on the same beverages using a trained 10-person sensory panel and expanded lexicon of 28 sensory attributes that allowed the determination of consumer drivers of liking. Specific findings from the study include:

Identifying the sensory gap between diet and full calorie commercial lemon-lime soft drinks. This portion of the research programme revealed that mouthfeel was consistently different amongst diet and full calorie products. Full calorie lemon-lime drinks always scored higher in "tongue heaviness" mouthfeel attributes. Diet scored higher for "sweet," "sour," "bitter" and "metallic" aftertaste attributes, indicating that major sensory gaps still exist.

 Identifying which current ingredients or ingredient systems are effective in reducing the sensory gap. In the second phase of the research programme, Cargill found that all ingredients and ingredient systems contributing to sweetness, flavour and texture had an effect on flavour, aftertaste and mouthfeel attributes. Further, some ingredient systems significantly reduced one or two sensory-gap attributes and a few systems significantly reduced more than two sensory-gap attributes, but none were able to completely eliminate the sensory-gap.

Evaluating the role of lubricity in sensory attributes. The third component of the research programme found that sensory attributes are correlated with lubricity (friction) – how a beverage inAir Max

Add to Favorites
You May Like