Less is more: Kerry spotlights reduced salt chips, low-sugar cola and low-alcohol gin at FiE 2022

Therese O’Rourke, chief technology officer at Kerry Europe.

08 Dec 2022 --- Kerry is showcasing low-sugar, low-sodium, low-alcohol and front-of-pack (FoP) labeling solutions while highlighting its environmental sustainability focus at the Food ingredients Europe (FiE) trade show in Paris, France (Dec 6-8). 

The expo sets the scene for the Irish food giant to demonstrate its four leading platforms for innovation: authentic taste, plant-based ingredients, proactive health and food waste and preservation.

“What we are presenting here at FiE today very much brings to life our innovation across these four pillars,” Therese O’Rourke, chief technology officer at Kerry Europe, tells NutritionInsight on the show floor.

“So whether that be in taste – where we are showcasing our Tastesense in a range of beverages and foods – everything we do is llinked to making sure that we are making products that are better, but also with an eye toward being better for people and better for the planet.” 

Table for two billion
O’Rourke explains that Kerry has the ambitious goal of delivering sustainable nutrition solutions to two billion people by 2030. Moreover, she states that the company is already halfway toward this target.

“What we are doing is working very closely with our customers to really understand the problems that they are trying to solve,” she elaborates. “And then looking at that and looking at our technology and trying to see how we can leverage our technologies to help them solve their problems.”Kerry offers samples of its sustainability-focused products at FiE 2022 in Paris.

“It might be where we work with them to reduce waste by extending shelf life and, for example, if we take a loaf of bread, we can leverage our food protection and preservation capability to help extend the shelf life of that fresh product and thereby reduce waste.”

“It’s only by partnering with our customers that we can achieve our joint sustainability goals.”

Scoring nutritional points
Kerry also showcased its recently published KerryNutri Guide, a customer-facing tool that supports manufacturers in optimizing the nutritional profile of products while being aware of the various FoP regulations.

O’Rourke explains that, because the guide has all of the FoP regulations from across the globe, customers can input their product’s composition and instantly see how the product compares to existing regulations. The tool also enables businesses to quickly see reformulation options that could not only increase the nutritional score, but even reduce the product’s associated taxes.

“For example, if a customer is on the wrong end of the spectrum on the NutriScore – toward a ‘D’ or an ‘E’ – it will instantly show the ingredient that is causing that score, and then we can quickly focus on that area and look at reformulation opportunities,” she exemplifies.

Guilt-free indulgences
Meanwhile, Kerry is highlighting its Tastesense Salt and Tastesense Sweet Organic Certified solutions to demonstrate how these reformulations can work in customers’ products. Tastesense is Kerry’s taste modulation solution that the company says can help provide clean label, organic and reduced sugar and salt solutions without compromising on taste. 

Kerry demonstrates its Tastesense modulation solution with low-sugar cola.At Kerry’s stand (#4.A110), the ingredient is featured in a reduced calorie cola and lemon beverage with 30% less sugar than comparable drinks, as well as Memphis barbecue flavor reduced salt crisps and cheddar cheese flavor salt reduced crisps.

“This application essentially builds back everything that you lose when you bring out sugar, so you get the same great taste, but with less calories,” O’Rourke explains. “Also, when we did our lifecycle analysis on the beverage, we see that it leads to a 30% reduction in carbon, 30% reduction in water usage and up to 30% reduction in calories.”

“One of the big breakthroughs we’ve had this year is working with our customers to reduce salt in snacks by up to 60%, without compromising on the overall taste, by layering in our Tastesense salt capability,” she continues.

“It balances the overall taste profile, even when the salt content is reduced. This is another example of how we’re working with our customers to move them along the sustainable nutrition spectrum.”

Another round?
One final solution the company is showcasing is a low alcohol gin with only half of the alcohol of most gins, without compromising on the associated burning alcohol sensation.

“This low-alcohol gin is leveraging Tastesense, and really making sure that the consumer can have all of that indulgence of alcohol without compromising on great taste,” says O’Rourke.

By William Bradford Nichols, reporting from FiE 2022

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