The modern-day food market is a tightly controlled space. Consumers have come to expect high levels of quality and presentation from the products they buy. Stock needs to be in consistent supply, while the look, feel and taste of produce needs to be as close to their perception of ‘perfect’ as possible.
In response, retailers pile up attractive pyramids of fresh fruit and vegetables, aiming for them to look as appealing as they taste. Baked goods, such as cakes and pastries are attempting to be ‘Instagram-worthy’ in their packaging, with flaky croissants just waiting to be torn and cupcakes with cloud-like swirls of colourful frosting.
But achieving this ‘flawless’ image takes hard work, and it often can’t be obtained without some synthetic processing – even if the key ingredients are naturally derived. With a food industry driven by increasing demand for produce to delight all the senses, the development and sale of innovative food additives and ingredients has soared over recent decades. Let’s dig a little deeper into how the illusion of ‘perfection’ is achieved.
Glossy stacks of apples usually haven’t achieved their shine from a good polish, it’s likely their sparkle comes from a coating of beeswax, a glazing agent used to enhance the look of fruit skin for a mouthwatering sheen. Meanwhile, iced cakes are often topped with frosting that’s rich in trans fats, in order to hold its impressively whipped shape and texture at room temperature.
Aside from appearance, there’s also increasing pressure for longer shelf lives of food products, as well as an overall robustness, to ensure produce can withstand rigorous transportation and packaging processes before reaching the consumer.
The market for companies developing the necessary ingredients to support industry demands has become extremely competitive. Read on to discover some of the brands making an impact in the food additive development and ingredient systems space.
Developing the process or ingredient to give a product a specifically authentic taste, look or feel, is often the ‘holy grail’ of endeavours. Fresh produce, in particular, will spoil in a matter of a few days, sometimes even hours, before starting to lose ‘crunch’, dry out or begin to perish. Therefore, the trick to keeping food fresh, for as long a shelf life as possible, is one that continues to be attempted and developed.
Coffee can lose its flavour and aroma rapidly and roasters adhere to painstaking processes to ensure freshness for as long as possible. The trick to finding a coffee product that can be packaged up and purchased on a supermarket shelf but still has the aroma and unadulterated taste of a freshly roasted bean, is one which many manufacturers have toiled over.
The Coffee Brewmasters, a Melbourne-based coffee and tea extraction company, have developed a unique technology for producing rich coffee extracts. Five years in the making, they’ve come up with ‘The TCB® Process’ “to produce an extract from your bean selection with the flavour profiles you would expect from that bean”.
The Coffee Brewmasters have ensured that their specialised extraction process can be used in countless outlets, not just in retail. Cafés, bars and foodservice operations alike can take advantage of their technique which “combines science, technology & coffee knowledge [with] an all-natural process [to] enable the production of high-quality all-natural coffee and tea products”.
Founder Paul Marra became passionate about coffee back in the mid-1990s. Travelling the world from Vietnam to South America, he discovered just how much of an authentic coffee-drinking sensory experience was lost between sourcing, delivery and subsequently reaching the consumer.
The ‘TCB® Process’ uses beans and water “to deliver, a true to bean concentrated liquid, shelf-stable at ambient temperature, utilising the total solids and components within the coffee bean.” A unique propriety process that is said to add a potent hit of flavour, The Coffee Brewmasters’ ‘Intense’ blend of infused beans are boasted to be “1.6 times more concentrated than your average bean.”
Hela Spice Australia are a global developer and manufacturer of a range of ingredient systems, spice blends, seasonings, and marinades. With over 100 years in the industry, the company was established back in 1905 in Hamburg, Germany and Hela are now represented in more than seventy countries worldwide. Their ethos is rooted in a passion for authentic taste and flavour, using this knowledge to appeal to a diverse market, their blends are specifically customised to meet their client’s needs.
“The food industry today is a place where culinary authenticity merges with ingredient technology. At Hela we have strategically positioned ourselves to be at the heart of this intersection.” (hela.com.au)
Hela’s ingredients and application systems can be used for almost any food group, from meat and seafood to baked goods, snacks, beverages, plant-based and dairy products. Their unique ingredient blends assist food production in a variety of ways, from their ‘M-flex’ blend, promising to reduce maturation time in Salami-style products as well as improve sliceability, to their ‘Lipoflex’ blend consisting of natural ingredients designed for allergen-free and e-free rind emulsion.
Hela’s blends aim to reduce a company’s production costs, while improving yield and processing systems, creating a higher quality finished product to appeal directly to their specific customer base.
Additives don’t simply go skin deep; it’s not all about indulging the senses. Companies like Nu-Mega have a very different focus. Passionate about improving people’s health with omega-3 fatty acids, this company began as a small family-run business. Now, after nearly 30 years in the industry, they’ve elevated the company from a succinct early focus on omega-3 supplementation (for use in infant formula), to go on to achieve a world-first introduction of polyunsaturated fatty acids via soft gel capsule.
Nu-Mega’s notability didn’t end there. In 1988, the company introduced the introduction of microencapsulated omega-3 into infant formula, followed by the launch of next-generation 50% oil-loaded technology in 2002. The company’s patented microencapsulation technologies work to protect sensitive oils from oxidation.
With a strong focus on health, Nu-Mega have continued their journey to develop microencapsulated powders, incorporated with increased oil loadings to enable their customers to fortify their products at the highest levels.
Nu-Mega continues to focus on improving health through good nutrition from the earliest years to adulthood. Our product portfolio delivers the DHA, EPA and ARA that’s essential to growth and development, to boost the immune system, promote heart health and reduce inflammation. All products deliver the highest standards of purity, stability and performance (nu-mega.com)
It’s worth noting that, despite the additives and supplementary ingredients industry coming up against significant challenges, particularly in the form of negative press regarding their safety for consumption, when we look at companies like Nu-Mega, we can see where additives can have a scientifically proven positive health impact on the population.
Research has shown that infant formula rich in “Omega-3 DHA, is critical to the development of the brain and optimal cognitive function in infants and has a continued role for children, [while] the role of omega-3s in behaviour, learning and maintenance in older children and the elderly is also emerging” (nu-mega.com).
Food additives are here to stay. To give a countrywide perspective, in 2021, an investigation into a total of 24,229 Australian packaged food and beverage products was conducted. Individual products contained between 1 and 62 ingredients, with a total of 233,113 ingredients detected overall. The survey revealed that “Additives’ were contained in the largest proportion of products 64.6%” (National Institutes of Health).
This industry is a work in progress. Constantly evolving, with new findings developed and analysed daily. We’re aware of the positives that additives and supplementary ingredients can have on the product market, particularly in cases where added ingredients have been proven to offer significant benefits to human health and development.
However, “while food additives can extend shelf life and improve palatability, their health consequences are not fully understood. Assessing food-additive exposure over time is a vital step in understanding its potential role in some adverse health outcomes” (foodprocessing.com.au).