Hybrids Products to Enhance Nutri-Functional Attributes and Health Benefits
This article is based on two blogs that appear on the inewtrition.com website which look at the current gaps in the overall value proposition between animal and plant-based protein sources in modern beverages.
Business cycles and political agendas change faster than ever, and threats and opportunities arise farther and farther away from the individual company, often from other sectors, new technology, political decisions or crises like the current one we find ourselves in.
The food and beverage industry is evolving together with modern consumer habits. More and more products from different categories compete together offering newer and more advanced benefits to consumers.
Consumers react consequently, evolving their lifestyles and consumption patterns continuously. New trends affect the way we buy and consume our products and branding, influences our expectations in terms of taste, nutrition, and packaging. Developed countries seek more filling and substantial meals to facilitate their flexi-eating habits.
From a food science and nutrition perspective, it is important to recognise the nutritional value that can be created from a varied diet utilising many of these aforementioned beneficial products. This can often be enhanced by the addition of multifunctional products, including both animal and plant-based ingredients, and it is important to acknowledge the associated benefits and challenges that both present.
MULTIFUNCTIONAL: WHAT’S THE POINT?
Functional foods and beverages are those which include an additional function by adding new ingredients or more of existing ingredients. I am sure we are all very familiar with seeing terms like “added vitamins and minerals” or “fortified with calcium” on packaging.
Functional foods and beverages are not a completely new concept, but the market is expanding rapidly and consumers are understanding the benefits behind making a product more ‘functional’. Benefits such as lowering cholesterol, boosting energy, slowing age, or decreasing stress and fatigue.
Functional beverages are very much in line with the convenience trend that has swept the food industry off its feet in recent years. They aim to pack more nutritional benefits into one product which can often be a cost and time-saving benefit for consumers. For example, we are increasingly looking for products where carbohydrates or fats are replaced or enhanced with multifunctional fibres. This trend is driving food manufacturers to change formulations in a cost-effective way, while trying to maintain mouthfeel, texture and taste.
In our modern lives (outside of crisis), beverages can often replace meals, especially during out-of-home consumption, so people scrutinize empty calories and look for nutrient-dense beverages that are high in quality protein, fibre and good fats which aim to satiate, prevent sugar crashes and help people to stay focused i.e. provide a multifunction to the drinker.
Beverages can then also turn into contemporary supplements, regulating our brain and body functions on a micronutrient level to enhance energy and cognitive performance. Getting more support from beverages to maintain energy levels from the beginning of the day to the end with no negative impact on sleep, or even help to sleep better and replenish as inspired by high performance athletes. At the same time, the need for better, more nutritious beverages that help modern knowledge workers to not only balance their energy levels but also to enhance their cognitive performance is a driver for innovation in this category.
The liquid supplement market is another growing product category with multifunctional offerings, driven by desire for alternative delivery formats for nutrients with sufficient vitamin and mineral content to support claims under current EU regulations.
Functional beverages with natural functions and nutrition help to positively influence and even improve physical and mental wellbeing. To improve their health, people turn to natural remedies and healing potions from ancient wisdom. In natural remedies each ingredient has a benefit, even flavourings.
Product Format Examples:
Emergent flavours and ingredients such as:
LET’S LOOK FROM A PLANT-BASED CONTEXT
The plant-based industry has grown enormously throughout the past few years and has aimed to replace traditional brands with newer, plant-based versions.
While plant-based diets can be a natural source of dietary fibre, vegetarians and vegans need to choose combinations of foods that would also provide an adequate protein intake, a key macronutrient readily available in meat, seafood, dairy and eggs. Plant-based diets must be carefully planned to meet the protein recommendations from a qualitative (protein digestibility PDCAAS) and quantitative (nutrient content claim, essential amino acids) perspective. Bio-accessibility, bioavailability, and digestibility may be concerns which appear and need to be assessed during the development and scaling of foods and beverages.?
The nutritional quality of plant-based proteins can be improved and enhanced with specific techniques such as fermentation, heat treatment, milling, germination, extrusion, reduction of chymotrypsin and trypsin inhibitors as well as other antinutritional factors. Alternatively, plant-based products can be enriched with other protein sources.
领英推荐
WHERE ARE WE WITH ANIMAL-BASED PRODUCTS?
Focusing on dairy as an example, animal milk consumption has been in decline for many years while consumption of non-dairy alternatives has been on the rise. A 2017 study by McCarthy et al. found that consumers who chose to purchase only non-dairy alternatives were not necessarily vegetarian or vegan, but sought plant-based beverages for various reasons. Included was their desire to limit animal-based foods due to health concerns, animal mistreatment, and the belief that plant-based beverages were more environmentally friendly than dairy milk. Some vegetarian consumers continued to consume animal milk because they believed so much in its nutritional value.
Animal products, in general, can provide us with numerous benefits from a nutrition standpoint. Dairy milk (no, not the chocolate kind) is considered a nutrient-dense food which ensures that we do not become deficient in necessary vitamins or minerals. It also contains easily digestible proteins with balanced amino acid profiles.
Whey Protein, in particular, is becoming an increasingly important protein of choice because of its proven health, nutrition and functional benefits. Whey proteins have high biological value, are rapidly digested and rich in Glutamine and branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) such as Leucine (needed for protein synthesis), Cysteine (boosting the immune system), and Threonine (maintaining gut barrier and function). They also contain growth factors and immune regulators.
From a functional perspective, whey proteins can form a gel, have good water holding capacity and foaming properties throughout a wide pH range to enhance texture and sensorial experience. They can add significant value in multiple product categories such as cheese, fish and meat analogues. Blending for nutritional balance and improvement in sensory acceptability is key for success to build insightful, authentic and sustainable branding strategies in the food space.?
Plant-based dairy alternatives are perceived as being the healthier option in a consumer’s eyes. While highly beneficial and nutritious in many ways with additional nutrients (fibre, vitamins/minerals, antioxidants) without the saturated fats, they are still lacking in some other essential nutrients. For example, cow’s milk has approximately six per cent protein, 80 per cent of which is made up of casein, with the remaining 20 per cent being whey. Both of these are high quality (in terms of amino acids) and easily digestible proteins.
So, why aren’t we making all foods and beverages more nutri-functional?
Depending on the processing steps and the type of product category, an R&D team would first have to assess and rank the overall functionality of different fibres against a set of clearly defined criteria. They tend to absorb larger amounts of water so by simply adding them to the recipe, you may end up with a very different product.
In addition, when adding extra ingredients like fibre to a recipe, the nutritional label must be changed too. Three aspects are of particular importance: the ingredients list, nutritional claims and health claims.
It wouldn’t make sense to just add a multifunctional fibre layer into every food product for the sake of it. An in-depth analysis from a food science perspective is needed in order to decide if a product with added fibre will actually be beneficial to those who consume it. Some thoughts to take into account are:
Companies who want to survive in this modern food economy will have to step away from an inability to respond to change and traditional strategies. They need to use a combination of marketing creativity and NPD to adjust to the demands of the target consumer.
To read each of the original blogs in their entirety, you can find them here. For anything else, please do not hesitate to book a consultation or reach out directly to me [email protected]
References
[1] Frost and Sullivan, file:///C:/Users/bordbia/Downloads/CSIFT%20Plant%20Based%20Proteins_February_2019.pdf
[2] NNB, fil:///C:/Users/bordbia/Downloads/NNB__01_2020%20(1)%20(1).pdf
[3] Sethi, S., Tyagi, S.K. and Anurag, R.K. (2016) Plant-based milk alternatives an emerging segment of functional beverages: a review. Journal of Food Science and Technology, 53(9), pp.3408-3423
[4] Vanga, S.K. and Raghavan, V. “How well do plant-based alternatives fare nutritionally compared to cow’s milk?” 2018. Journal of Food Science & Technology?55(1):10–20.
[5] IFT (Institute of Food Technologists), 2019. “Plant-Based Protein from Grains, Seeds and Pulses.”
[6] McCarthy, K. S., Parker, M., Ameerally, A. S., Drake, L. and Drake M.A. 2017 “Drivers of choice for fluid milk versus plant-based alternatives: what are consumer perceptions of fluid milk?” Journal of Dairy Science 100:6125–6138.
[7] Kongerslev Thorning, T., Bertram, H.C., Bonjour, J-P, de Groot, L. Dupont, D., Feeney, E., Ipsen, R., Lecerf, J.M., Mackie, A., McKinley, M.C., Michalski, M-C., Rémond, D., Risérus, U., Soedamah-Muthu, S., Tholstrup, T., Weaver, C.,?Astrup, A., Givens, I. 2017 “Whole dairy matrix or single nutrients in assessment of health effects: current evidence and knowledge gaps”. Am J Clin Nutr 105:1033–45.