Quest's ImpaQ flavours win global market approval
ImpaQ Taste Technology allows food producers for the first time to dramatically reduce levels of salt, fat, and sugar in foods and beverages without compromising on taste.
10/02/06 Flavour company Quest says it is on the verge of worldwide success with its biggest flavour breakthrough in a decade, aimed at solving food and beverage taste issues linked with salt, fat and sugar.
Launched for market testing in summer 2005, Quest's ImpaQ Taste Technology allows food producers for the first time to dramatically reduce levels of salt, fat, and sugar in foods and beverages without compromising on taste. In the case of salt, reductions of up to 50% are already proving possible and should be available to consumers in a variety of end uses this year. In non-reduction environments, ImpaQ also delivers superior taste performance across sweet and savoury products, allowing existing brands to win renewed consumer loyalty through enhanced taste.
ImpaQ Taste Technology was the result of a decade-long R&D programme by Quest to identify how its flavours could solve taste issues. By leveraging its creation and application expertise, Quest developed flavours specifically designed to perform in 'low' environments, such as low salt, low sugar and low fat.
The most significant progress came with fundamental research into meat bouillons and mature cheeses, aimed at identifying the key flavour components that make these important foodstuffs taste delicious.
Quest's Flavours Group Vice President, Cees de Jong, says his team is working with several of the world's major food manufacturers on a variety of reduction and flavour enhancement projects, spanning savoury and sweet applications. "The first products using ImpaQ Taste Technology are being produced and are on their way the supermarket shelves already in Latin America, Mexico, Benelux and Spain. We have experienced the biggest take-up in Asia-Pacific, which is no surprise given the impressive growth and economic trends in some of the countries in APAC. We expect significant new savoury and sweet applications to be on shelves here and in the other regions this spring”, says de Jong.
"We always knew this was going to be a major breakthrough: the Quest approach to delivering deliciousness and at the same allowing for low salt, fat and sugar content in products is unique in the industry. The response from customers has been overwhelmingly positive."
Quest has had six ImpaQ-related additional patents granted, three of which are published, and five more patents pending. They believe this is still the only flavour-based innovation in the reduction arena. Since 1999, the company has submitted 35 flavour-related patents connected with this work.
Quest's Executive Flavourist, Harry Renes, adds: "We are particularly delighted that some of the salt reduction products we have been working on with customers, and which are due to be launched into the consumer market in the summer, have managed reductions of between 40% and 50% . In these low salt environments, we have had excellent results from consumer tests that have shown no difference in preference between a reduced product using ImpaQ technology and its normal level equivalent.
"However, ImpaQ is not only about replacing salt, sugar or fat and compensating for the lack of taste in `low' environments: it's also, much more comprehensively, about understanding how to create deliciousness in foods. In addition to the low environment products, we are therefore also using ImpaQ taste technology for the masking of undesirable taste characteristics and the creation of superior authentic flavours.
"We see huge and imminent potential for ImpaQ flavours to help healthy foods taste better and to improve diet through food reformulation, whether in line extensions or whole new brands."
