New options for clean label and sugar reduction

THIS year, Tate & Lyle looks forward to helping food and beverage manufacturers develop products using two of its innovative products, namely KRYSTAR^® Crystalline Fructose and

CLARIA^® Delight clean label tapioca starch.  Tate & Lyle launched both ingredients at Fi Asia in Jakarta, Indonesia, where it continues to build its local resources to serve this market even faster. At this trade show, we met with Gerd Frank Pedersen, Regional Lead, Texturants, Asia Pacific, bring us up to date on its Tate & Lyle’s activities not only in Indonesia, but globally.

How are you presenting Tate & Lyle’s new portfolio of products in the ASEAN market.

Each and every ASEAN market has its own characteristics with only a few similarities between the different countries. In the case of taste characteristics and texture profiles, we need to support our customers in the individual Southeast Asia countries with specific samples. For instance, when we present a yogurt here in Indonesia, we look at what is the typical yogurt flavor and texture profile that the Indonesian market requires and we propose the appropriate product and formulation that can be slightly different to another market like Thailand for example.

Is there a preferred taste for yogurt in these countries?

The dairy market in Indonesia is still emerging, whereas the dairy market in Thailand has been developing for the last 40 years and has been very much supported by the government. I think in that sense, there is no clear definition on what the Indonesian consumer is looking for yet. We are still at the stage where we look at what is in the market and we try to meet what consumers want.

The CLARIA^® Delight clean label starch is applied in yogurt

What is distinct about the CLARIA^® Delight Clean Label starch?

We have chosen to launch the CLARIA^® Delight in a series of tapioca-based clean label functional starches with three different process tolerances. A few years ago, we launched corn based functional starches with CLARIA^® Essential, CLARIA^® Elite, and CLARIA^® Plus. But we are very excited to demonstrate our new product line, CLARIA^® Delight, especially because we see there is a large market preference for functional tapioca-based starches in Asia Pacific and ASEAN countries.

As the texture and taste attributes are different, we do believe that the potential market for the tapioca-based clean label functional starches is probably larger than for our equivalent corn-based versions. So we are showcasing the products in two dairy concepts: fresh yogurt and long shelf life yogurt. We have seen the market for long shelf life yogurt expand considerably in China, launched by dairy companies there to reach the more rural areas.

To my knowledge, there is very little long shelf life yogurt available in ASEAN countries such as in the Philippines and Indonesia where the supply chain can sometimes be challenging. That is why we believe dairy companies can take advantage of this long shelf life opportunity. In the long shelf life segment, we have versions based both on modified and clean label starches to give a wide choice to our customers.

Is the formulation of long shelf life yogurts difficult?

It is quite challenging because the task requires that you apply very high heat treatment to control the microbiology in order for the product to have a long shelf life. The packaging is also different – not the cup style, so you can imagine the difficulty you have when packaging the product – the texture is already built up but you break it down a little bit in the filling process. So we developed a specific high-resistant starch for this purpose. We are also able to mimic that high level of resistance to our CLARIA^® Delight functional clean-label starch, where you have no chemical modification but have the same resistance pattern.

Please tell us about KRYSTAR^® Crystalline Fructose.

Compared to sugar, fructose is 17% sweeter and also has an enhancement effect when used together with sugar to make the product even sweeter as well as enhancing flavor, for example with citrus fruit flavor.

Since fructose is sweeter than sugar, we can reduce the use level in formulations and enhance the flavor as well. So, it is a very cost-effective sweetening solution for customers.

Fructose such as KRYSTAR^®  is a more cost-effective sweetener compared to sugar

How do you help companies formulate using your ingredients?

For fructose we work very closely with customers, not just in the ingredients functionality capability but also the application capability, to finalize a formulation that meets the customer’s objective for the product. Our food technology team has great expertise across a range of applications including beverages, dairy products, sauces and bakery.

I think we are one of the main ingredient suppliers that supported dairy companies in the early stages of development of long shelf life yogurt. We have been able to provide our technology, for example, to a range of dairy producers in China to demonstrate that it is actually possible to have a long shelf life yogurt that is stable for a five to six month period in an ambient temperature and also has outstanding sensory properties. This is quite a tough requirement, but we have successfully supported several of our dairy customers with this technology.

What are the expectations in 2017?

We are very positive. Europe followed by the US, is currently our largest market for clean-label functional starches, but we are seeking a very significant increase in requests for clean-label functional starches from Asia Pacific. I think it is due to a couple of things: one is that a lot of our customers have been looking for clean-label functional starches to support their development of products especially made for Europe. For instance in the instant soup, sauce, dressing segment which is already a long shelf life segment, there are a lot of producers in Asia Pacific with customers in Europe. We have benefited from engaging together with these customers to produce the final products for export to Europe. This gives our customers the confidence that clean-label starch can do the same as a modified starch.

The second point is that many of these producers are also starting to look at their own local markets. So in the next two to three years, we expect a significant increase in demand in the clean label space here in Asia.

We also see a continuing trend in sugar and calorie reduction as a requirement for Asian markets and Indonesia in particular.