With the global population predicted to grow to 9.7 billion by 2050, there is increased focus on sustainable food production to meet rising demand worldwide. One major consideration is how food production contributes to food waste and how food waste impacts the world. In this article, we take a holistic and collaborative approach to understanding how food waste is created and how reducing food waste can benefit the environment, industry, and consumers alike. 

The urgency around reducing food waste.  

An estimated 33% of all food produced globally, goes to waste¹. In the US this figure is as high as 50% ².  

At a time when sustainable food systems are globally imperative, food waste reduction has a role to play financially, socially and environmentally. A loaf of bread or a pack of ham that is past its date is not just wasted food and a lost sale. This also costs water and energy and creates CO2 emissions. It’s also a missed opportunity to nourish an ever-growing population, magnifying issues of hunger and malnutrition. 

There are many opportunities throughout a products lifecycle to reduce food waste, including during the growing, post-harvesting storage, processing, packing, transport, retail stages and consumer behaviour. A reduction in food waste through preservation can benefit manufacturers, retails and consumers through extended shelf life, protect margins and inspiring consumer confidence with safer food which lasts longer.  

Food waste reduction allows the planet’s resources to nourish more people. To put things into perspective, if food waste were a country, it would be the 3^rd highest emitter of greenhouse gases (after the US and China). Consequently, reduction in food waste can also benefit the planet though greenhouse gas reduction.  

Half of consumer food waste could be prevented by extra shelf-life days ^3,4. If the food industry could transform all food loss and waste, there would be enough food to feed the number of undernourished people in the world today twice over. Not only can the industry preserve food and reduce waste, but they can better deliver food safety solutions. Thus, reducing product recalls, which impact both the industry and consumers annually.  

Where does food waste come from?

Globally, around 14% of food produced is lost between harvest and retail, while an estimated 17% of total food is wasted once produced. Some examples of food waste through the supply chain include: 

1. Post-harvest – In Europe, a meat plant using a hot water rinse for carcass decontamination must cut off the “cooked” parts of the meat. This may not even be measured and just considered as a cost of doing business. The value quantification of this loss could be used to justify the investment in a different post-harvest solution. This investment would have the potential to deliver overall cost and meat savings. 
2. Processing – Within bakeries dough can often stick to equipment. This results in a certain number of baked goods are rejected due to lack of uniformity/warping. Solutions such as enzymes can be used to improve uniformity and prevent dough stickiness, unlocking value through eliminating this source of waste. 
3. Retail distribution – Retailers can often have a large number of products being removed from shelves due to their “best before” dates. A model of a “best before but still good after” sections for markdowns is being championed by Too Good To Go in many regions today. Additionally, where a product line is creating a lot of retail waste, technologies that support shelf-life extension can reduce labour rotating shelves, deliveries and overall waste in the supply chain.  
4. Shipping – Inadequate packing, transport and shipping can lead to physical damage of product and food packaging, including bruising of fresh product, squashing of soft items such as bakery, bursting heat seals in meat packs and denting canned goods. Auditing and revaluating packaging, palletisation, loading and shipping methods can result in less physical damage and rejections at store level. 
5. Foodservice distribution – Back of house waste can occur when product packaging is opened and not fully used before it reaches its open shelf-life date. Simple changes in pack size or a different preservation method can give a longer open shelf life. There is also waste from products that have poor resilience to the supply chain and become “imperfect foods” back of house. For example, burger buns that get squashed/disintegrate through being stacked or don’t thaw well and stick to each other if frozen. Enzymes and hydrocolloids can maintain spring and freshness, while glazes can prevent visual cracking and general disintegration, maintaining consumer appeal.     
6. Consumer loss – The reasons for loss at a consumer level are twofold. Studies show that up to one half of consumer waste could be prevented by shelf-life extension⁴. Texture, taste and appeal can be the factors limiting shelf life, long before spoilage microbes take hold. Microbial shelf life extension can be achieved either through adding more days through preservation or through education on the suitability of a product for freezing, allowing more time for a product to be shopped and consumed. The second reason for food waste is consumer behaviour. This is where the industry can play a role in ensuring it takes a holistic approach to formulation, prioritizing consumer needs across health, taste, cost, convenience, portion size and other factors linked to product appeal and enjoyment to prevent a product being left on shelf, forgotten in the pantry or ending up in landfill. 

The financial benefit of reducing food waste 

With food and energy prices at an all time high, reducing costs through food waste mitigation can benefit all stakeholders within the food system. 

Reducing food waste can reduce costs in: 

• Production: Enzymes and processing aids can improve efficiencies and yields in large scale production of breads and baked goods, reducing food waste and costs. For example, proteases have a softening effect on dough and make kneading easier. These enzymes reduce mixing time, improve dough consistency and uniformity, regulate gluten strength in bread, control bread texture and improve flavour.  
• Supply chain: Extended shelf-life days allows extra time to pack, pick, transport, deliver and display products, therefore reducing the financial and environmental cost of waste. Supply chain resiliency through preservation directly reduces food loss early in the chain.  In emerging markets, 60% of food waste occurs early in the supply chain, before it reaches the retailer
• Retail: when a product stays fresher for longer on shelf in-store, consumers have more time to buy and use the food while it is still safe and appealing, meaning less waste in-store and at home. 
• Food service: secondary shelf-life keeping opened product fresher for longer can mean better efficiencies back-of-house, helping food service operatives manage stock levels and cut down on waste, particularly in bulk pack formats. Additionally, packaging that allows for easy resealing can play a part in maintaining freshness, especially with larger pack formats.
• Consumer: Concern about food safety from consumers creates waste.  By providing more shelf-life days, coupled with better sensory appeal, consumers can feel assured that their food is saft and delicious throughout the life. Meaning less food will be thrown out “just in case”.  
• Recalls: A huge cost to the industry, in both monetary and reputational terms, product recalls due to spoilage can be avoided or eliminated with the right approach to preservation. 

In essence, extra shelf-life days give people more time to use food and avoid it going to waste.  

Steps to consider when reducing food waste

Food waste is multifaceted, with numerous causes. Therefore, solutions to food waste should not be one dimensional but holistic. It should encapsulate various manageable factors across microbial, textural and taste. 

1. Food Safety: Ensure products are safe to consume with proven efficacy and research-backed solutions. 
2. Shelf-Life Extension: Utilise expertise and solutions to extend shelf life of perishable food items. 
3. Taste, Nutrition, Appeal: Elevate visual and sensory appeal of products to last across the entire shelf life.

Tools to estimate food waste impacts:  

Kerry’s Food Waste Estimator illustrates the relationship between shelf-life extension and food waste impact. The Food Waste Estimator is an online tool for both manufacturers and consumers, which quantifies the impacts of food waste and the associated cost and resource savings available with the reduction of food waste.  

The Food Waste Estimator can demonstrate how, for example, extending the shelf life of bread by just one day can unlock cost savings for the manufacturer, with positive knock-on to retailers and consumers. This example can translate to value across the industry in the form of: 

• Improved efficiencies: better use of bakery resources, people and time. 
• Reduced pressure on supply chain/number of deliveries to service retailers with opportunities to supply more locations. 
• Better brand reach and consumer perception, both in store (when comparing Use By dates) and at home (more time to eat fresh, tasty bread before it goes bad). 
• Increased retailer and consumer loyalty due to positive brand perception. 

• Reduced retail returns to manufacturer. 
• Reduced shelf rotations of expired stock before sale. 
• Reduced mark downs for short shelf-life loaves, increased retailer profitability. 
• And ultimately, less food to landfill, ensuring a more sustainable food system. 

Try Kerry’s Food Waste Estimator to see how much waste your home or business generates and the impact food waste reduction can have.

Consumers are thinking about food safety and food waste in plant-based meat alternatives

Consumer concern for food safety has increased, with 60% of consumers saying they are more concerned about food safety due to the COVID-19 pandemic (2021 Kerry Proprietary Insights– Food Safety Fundamentals). Specifically, 49% of consumers are concerned about food safety in plant-based meat alternatives (2021 Kerry Proprietary Insights – Food Safety Fundamentals). Plant-based meat and dairy alternatives topped the list in terms of concerns, outranked only by fresh and processed meat. This increased concern can be attributed to consumer unfamiliarity with plant-based products. Consumers have limited experience with plant-based meat alternatives, which can result in inconsistent quality and taste. Product recalls are another factor with plant-based products, with media publicity raising public awareness and concern.

Sustainability and avoiding artificial preservatives are also top-of-mind when it comes to plant-based products. “No artificial preservatives” is a top claim consumers look for when purchasing plant-based products (Innova 2021). Consumers are paying closer attention to product labels than ever before. In a previous consumer research survey, 64% of plant-based consumers stated they read nutritional labels (Kerry Proprietary Insights 2019 – Meat: The Challenge).

Finding the balance with sustainability (reduced food waste) and ingredients that align with consumer’s health and wellness goals can be challenging. Now is the time for plant-based producers to rise to this challenge as increased market growth continues.

Plant-based meat alternatives have different food safety challenges than meat and require different solutions

Extensive food safety data, shelf-life data, and predictive models for food protection exist for meat and poultry products, but the same cannot be said for novel plant-based foods. It’s important to understand the technical challenges to formulate safe and quality plant-based meat alternatives. These technical challenges and considerations can include:

1. Plant-based ingredients have different levels and forms of macronutrients (carbohydrate, fat, protein) than their animal counterparts. For instance, the primary carbohydrate in milk is lactose, in meat it’s glycogen, and in pea, soy, and mushroom it’s various starches and oligosaccharides. This can lead to variation in the types and resultant levels of microorganisms able to thrive in the product. This means that threshold levels for what is considered “spoilage” (e.g. 10⁶ CFU/g) traditionally agreed upon for meat and poultry products may not be appropriate for plant-based products. In a survey of commercially available U.S. plant-based meats, starting bacterial populations varied from non-detectable to >10⁷ CFU/g at the time of purchase (Stafl 2020). This level of variability between products is significant and further emphasizes that there is more we need to understand about these products.
2. The array of ingredients used in plant-based foods can bring different microbial loads. Plant-based products typically have higher diversity in their ingredient lists than animal products, which consist mainly of one major raw ingredient (e.g. milk, beef). Including ingredients with high microbial loads (e.g. yeast extract, spices) to mimic meat flavor can introduce different bacteria into plant-based meat alternatives than those traditionally found in animal products.
3. The U.S. regulatory bodies governing plant-based foods and animal-based meats differ (FDA and USDA, respectively). With the FDA, a minimum cooking temperature of 135°F is suggested. For animal-based meats, the USDA recommends a minimum cooking temperature of 160°F for beef products and 165°F for poultry products. This could lead to confusion or inconsistent “best practices” being carried into consumer homes, with some consumers treating plant-based meats like meat and some like other foods. Manufacturers must therefore educate on what “best practice” is for their protein. Cooking to temperatures 145-165°F was shown to kill Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens at equal rates in beef- and plant-based burgers, suggesting cooking guidance for animal products could be applicable to plant-based analogs.
4. Many legacy technologies (curing, smoking, carcass washing, fermentation) used by meat and poultry processors have not been vetted or are non-transferrable to plant-based meat alternatives. Nevertheless, some learnings from meat can be applied to their plant-based counterparts. For example, ground or ground/formed products (i.e. products with additional handling) will have higher microbial counts than “whole muscle” products.

From an industry perspective, ingredient suppliers are often testing antimicrobial ingredient efficacy and product shelf-life in a lab environment which may not correctly mimic the specific production environment factors that are impacting a plant-based meat alternative’s ability to meet its shelf-life and safety goals. This means that microorganisms impacting the antimicrobial ingredient efficacy and plant-based shelf life may differ from findings based on lab or pilot-plant produced product trials. Product manufactures should consider testing in their production environment early in the product development process.

Learn more about unique food protection challenges and solutions for plant-based foods in our webinar Reducing Food Waste: Optimising Safety and Sustainability

The solution is an integrated approach

Taking an integrated approach to food protection in plant-based products is critical as these products continue to become mainstream. A science-backed approach to formulation with application and substrate-specific hurdles to avoid early spoilage and food safety risks is key as consumers demand quality and convenience.

This means understanding the specific microbes a plant-based meat is exposed to from ingredients or during production, the packaging used for a specific product and how well it offers shelf life protection, and selecting the appropriate ingredients that can solve these unique challenges.

Ensuring food safety is at the core of new product development will always be in the consumer’s best interest and will lend well to market success for plant-based meat manufacturers.

Consumer research helps us to group the main categories of what consumers are looking for when it comes to ‘clean label’, trustworthy foods: ingredients, nutrition and sustainability. 84% of American consumers are seeking more natural and less processed foods.

At the same time, foodborne illness is the #1 food safety concern for consumers, rising above issues like chemicals or food additives (International Food Information Council, 2019). so as the food industry tries to meet these demands, they are faced with the challenge of finding the balance between convenience and safety, while also offering foods that are as close to homemade as possible.

When we decode consumer demands, we may find ourselves layering in challenges that consumers care about, but have not even considered.

For example, natural foods create challenges surrounding:

1. Food waste
2. Food safety
3. Food appearance

Balancing food waste and the movement towards natural foods

Natural, homemade foods with local, kitchen cupboard ingredients, are the standard narrative targeted by many consumers – unfortunately they have a very short shelf-life.

When I think about a loaf of my homemade brown bread, within about three days it will be stale and it will likely be mouldy in under a week. For me, novelty of it being homemade and feeling premium offsets the urgency with which it must be eaten. In my experience, whether it’s a homemade cake or loaf of bread, I can often feel like I am eating more out of a sense to make sure no food goes to waste rather than to enjoy the food.

The same emotional consumer journey does not translate for purchased food with natural positioning, which usually comes at a premium. When the consumer realises that the shelf life of natural food is inconvenient and doesn’t fit into their busy lifestyle, there is a negative association with the money wasted and the pressure not to let the product go to food waste. The intent to repurchase is diminished due to the inconvenience of wasting a premium food product or having to shop more often to accommodate a product’s short shelf life. One-third of food globally goes to waste and this rises to 40% in North America.

Think now of store-bought bread. Across the US and Europe, bread has the highest volume of waste but is generally a low value product. When you buy a baguette in Paris for €1 or €2, you are not surprised when it goes stale within a day. Daily fresh bread is part of the tradition. In the US however, if you’re buying a loaf of bread for sandwiches on your weekly shop and you switch to a natural, premium brand, only to find that it moulds within a few days, sending you back to the grocery store or searching for alternative lunch options…it doesn’t quite fit.

The solution is to look to naturally-derived methods of maintaining shelf life that meet consumers’ label and ingredient expectations that can be scaled up to create commercial solutions. Like adding lemon juice to fruit salad or rinsing fresh berries in vinegar, a combination of traditional methods and scientific studies can be used to solve these challenges. In bread for example, sourdough (fermented wheat flour) is an authentic shelf life solution.

The food safety problem posed by the removal of traditional preservatives

The number one claim in new product launches across many categories is “No Additives/Preservatives”(Mintel GNPD). Consumers want ingredients which they can understand and trust, but at the same time hold food safety as a top priority.

In the meat category for example, there is a distinction between fresh meat whose appearance and freshness is key and which must be handled and cooked correctly by the consumer. Consumers will scrutinise the source, freshness and appearance of fresh meat more than any other category.

Processed meats are highly regulated by bodies such as USDA for pathogen control to ensure food safety over shelf life. As consumers reject traditional preservatives, the industry must look to nature for solutions that help them to meet consumer demands without compromising food safety. Consumers are not willing to risk their family’s safety by feeding them preservatives, but equally, they are not willing to risk food poisoning for the same cause…

We see that meat brands who can find the balance with the removal of artificial preservatives but meet consumer shelf life and federal food safety regulations see growth in an otherwise stagnant market. With a range of natural shelf life options such as extracts, fermented vegetable juices, functional flavours and vinegar becoming more accessible globally and being backed by challenge and shelf life studies, there are options for brands looking to reformulate for health and wellness. For more information on how these solutions work, read the article Fermented Ingredients for Natural Preservation.

The aesthetics of ‘natural’ food

Consumer awareness of the natural appearance of certain foods can vary by region and education. For example, tarama (a Greek meze made from fish roe) is naturally beige/grey, but the French market has been conditioned for it to appear pink as a sign of quality. When confronted with the highest quality natural product, consumers are concerned that it has spoiled due to the unfamiliar colour.

Wild salmon may be white, depending on its diet or ability to process certain pigments. The deep red colour comes from pigments in crustaceans in the salmons’ diet. Farmed salmon is fed compounds to give it the familiar orange colour. Both of these are additives of sorts but they are unconsciously demanded by consumers through conditioning to recognise colour as a sign of quality.

Turkey deli meat is another example. In the US, to meet shelf life demands, it is often cured with sodium nitrite or natural alternatives for pathogen control. The resulting turkey deli meat carries a lot of the colour and flavour characteristics of ham, so many times the turkey flavour and appearance need to be built back in. Consumers confronted with whiter turkey deli meat may wonder if it is bleached, or bland in comparison to what they are used to.

Like has been done in recent years in other categories with claims such as “naturally cloudy” in apple juice, “natural sediment may occur” in craft beer or “separation is natural, stir me up” in natural nut butters, we must find ways to reassure consumers who may be surprised by the natural appearance of certain foods.

The future of ‘natural’

In short, consumers want it all and they want it now…but they don’t always understand what they are asking for. Science-backed innovation in this novel foods space is ongoing, gaps still exist to allow manufacturers to reduce packaging and maintain quality with naturally-derived processes and ingredients.

Market solutions need to be backed with food safety data and assessed as GRAS (generally recognised as safe) by regional bodies such as EFSA and the FDA for safety of new substances or new proposed uses for currently authorised substances.

As the industry moves towards greater transparency, there is an opportunity for consumer education to ensure products developed meet their unexpected expectations.

To watch our webinar on Clean Label: More Than Ingredients click here.

Acrylamide is a suspected carcinogen that forms in foods with certain sugars and amino acids, when processed at a high temperature.

Over the last number of years, rising awareness of it as a carcinogen has resulted in some governments introducing regulations with the aim of reducing its presence in foods. Many manufacturers have already taken steps to reduce its level of use. These European benchmarks for limiting the amount of acrylamide allowed in packaged foods came into effect in April 2018, but have already received some criticism from consumer groups.

Following a recent European-wide test undertaken by ten consumer groups that sampled more than 500 foods products known to include acrylamide, such as crisps, cookies, coffee or breakfast cereals,   European consumer organisations such as the BEUC, are now calling on the European Commission to lower benchmarks for acrylamide in food products.

In this European test, cookies and wafers were found to have high levels of acrylamide at or above the current benchmarks (for example, 300 micrograms of acrylamide per kilogram of many breakfast cereals), a particular issue potentially for the health of younger children, who often consume these type of products.

According to the BEUC, consumers, especially younger consumers, need to be better protected from acrylamide in their food.

What is Acrylamide?

Acrylamide or 2-propenamide is a chemical compound, with chemical formula CH2=CH–CO–NH2, that can be produced at high levels in heat treated foods containing the free amino acid asparagine and reducing sugars. Common foods with these properties include potato based snacks, cereal bars, biscuits, and crackers.

It is a by-product of the Maillard reaction, a series of non-enzymatic reactions between reducing sugars such as glucose and free amino acids.

Is Acrylamide a carcinogen?  What is the evidence and what are the risks?

According to EFSA’s risk assessment on acrylamide, EFSA’s scientific opinion is:

• Based on animal studies, EFSA confirms previous evaluations that acrylamide in food potentially increases the risk of developing cancer for consumers in all age groups.
• Since acrylamide is present in a wide range of everyday foods, this concern applies to all consumers but children are the most exposed age group on a body weight basis.
• Possible harmful effects of acrylamide on the nervous system, pre- and post-natal development and male reproduction were not considered to be a concern, based on current levels of dietary exposure.

How does acrylamide get into food and at what levels?

Acrylamide is produced in some foods during high temperature cooking processes such as frying, roasting and baking. The level of acrylamide produced will be dependent on a number of factors such as time, temperature and pH of cooking, content of reducing sugars (e.g. glucose, fructose, galactose) and the amino acid asparagine in the food/system. Depending on the process and food base the levels can range from as low as 10ppb (bread) to as high as 5,000 ppb (potato crisps).

Even though it has been shown that a temperature of 120 °C / 248 °F or higher is needed for the formation of acrylamide, there are reports confirming that this compound can be formed at temperatures below 100 °C / 212 °F (Biedermann and Grob 2003). It is important to note however that prolonged storage and heating time at high temperatures (higher than 120 °C) decrease the acrylamide content. The most extreme example of this would be coffee roasting, where acrylamide levels are decreased with prolonged high temperature roasting. A typical lightly roasted coffee could contain as much as 1800ppb acrylamide where the same dark roasted variety can be as low as 300ppb.

How can acrylamide be reduced in processed food?

• Analyse food products to understand levels present in foods post processing.
• Explore ways to reduce asparagine and/or reducing sugar content of chosen foods/raw materials for processing/cooking, for example removing potato starch from the formulation. More examples can be found in this toolbox.
• Control cooking temperatures and moisture content to reduce the level of acrylamide produced. This can impact processing and final product quality (taste and texture), therefore consumer acceptability will need to be taken into consideration. For example, baking at lower temperatures will require longer bake times. Prolonged storage and heating time at high temperatures (higher than 120 °C) decrease the acrylamide content but this may also decrease the quality of a food product.
• Monitor and allow for the impact of environmental and seasonal variations on acrylamide precursors in natural commodities such as potatoes.
• Explore alternative techniques and technologies.
• Replace ammonium bicarbonate, which has been shown to promote acrylamide production in sweet baked goods, with sodium bicarbonate, although this needs to be balanced against increased sodium intake.
• Reduce asparagine precursors with asparaginase.
  • Asparaginase enzymes have been developed to reduce asparagine precursors in the raw materials during processing and hence reduce acrylamide production during the subsequent cooking, baking or heating steps.
  • These solutions can be created with genetically modified organisms, or by using naturally occurring yeast cells with high asparaginase activity.

What are food allergies?

A food allergy happens when the immune system attacks harmless proteins in foods. Unlike a food allergy, an intolerance does not involve the immune system. It is a problem that affects people who have trouble digesting certain ingredients in foods. Lactose intolerance, a problem digesting milk sugar, is the most common intolerance. It is caused by a deficiency of lactase enzyme, which digests lactose sugar, and typically has less severe symptoms than a food allergy.

Food allergies can be fatal. An allergic reaction to food can affect the skin, the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory tract and, in the most serious cases, the cardiovascular system. Reactions can range from mild to severe, including the potentially lifethreatening condition anaphylaxis. Certain foods are more likely to cause dangerous reactions. For example, peanut, tree nut, shellfish, and fish allergies are usually more severe than fruit or vegetable allergies. Severity may be related to the amount eaten, with more dangerous symptoms following a larger amount ingested.

A person can develop a food allergy at any age. However, food allergies most often develop in infancy and childhood. Genetic predisposition (allergies running in families) and environmental factors (exposure to foods, components of the diet, and other factors) play a role.

Any food can cause food allergies. Over 170 have been noted to cause reaction. We hear so much about peanut allergy because it is widespread and usually persistent, and it accounts for most of the reported fatal reactions to foods. Peanuts, tree nuts, fish and shellfish cause the majority of allergic reactions in adults. In children 90% of the reactions are caused by cow’s milk, chicken’s eggs, wheat, peanuts, tree nuts and soybean protein.

Symptoms of allergic reactions

Mild to moderate

• Hives
• Redness of the skin near mouth and eyes
• Itchy mouth or ear canal
• Nausea, vomiting, or stomach pain
• Sneezing or a dry cough

Severe

• Trouble swallowing
• Shortness of breath, wheezing
• Feeling faint or passing out
• Chest pain

Food allergy labelling around the world

As the current treatment for food allergy involves dietary exclusion of the problem food, information for food‐allergic consumers provided on food labels about the nature of allergenic ingredients is important for the management of their condition. Consumers with food allergies and food intolerances rely on food labelling to enable them to make informed choices about the foods they eat.

A number of countries and regulatory bodies have recognized the importance of providing this information by enacting laws, regulations or standards for food allergen labelling of “priority allergens”. However, different governments and organizations have undertaken different approaches in identifying these “priority allergens” and in designing labelling declaration regulatory frameworks. Increasing volumes of international food trade suggests that there would be value in supporting sensitive consumers by harmonizing (to the extent possible) these regulatory frameworks. The foods that are currently identified as priority allergens in different regulatory frameworks are shown in the table below.

Food labelling information is vitally important for those individuals who have food allergies to enable them to make informed choices about the foods they eat. Differences in the patterns of sensitivity country to country make it unlikely that a single list of allergens will be appropriate for all jurisdictions.

1 Mackerel is the only fish listed.
2 Crab, shrimp, prawn are the only crustaceans listed.
3 Walnut is the only tree nut listed.
4 Squid, clam, oyster, abalone, mussel.
5 Clams.
6 For Canada – directly added or ≥10 mg/kg; For Brazil – no limit; Others ≥10 mg/kg.

What is fermentation?

Fermentation processes have been used for thousands of years to create beneficial food products. Food fermentation is the use of food cultures to preserve or change the texture, colour or flavour properties of a food. One of the most common examples is the process of creating cheese from milk.  Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), which are naturally occurring in milk, begin by converting the lactose from the milk into lactic acid.  These bacteria produce desirable flavours within the new cheese, but also can inhibit growth of pathogens.  As a result, the lactic acid is important in preservation and flavour is an added benefit.  Cheese making provides a vivid example of the beneficial effects of fermentation on our food by

• altering the texture
• generating different flavours and aroma
• enhancing the shelf life.

How has fermentation evolved? 

Since the discovery by Louis Pasteur that microorganisms play a role in the fermentation process, a new field of research was initiated to help us understand the relationship between microorganisms and food.  Researchers now have a broad knowledge of food fermentation and compounds produced by bacteria, yeast or fungi and why those fermentation products have a preservation effect.  This knowledge has enabled the development of safe, clean label fermentation-derived food ingredients which can provide the same enhancement to shelf-life when added to non-fermented foods.  These fermentation-derived food ingredients are produced by providing a carbohydrate rich food substrate such as sugar or milk to bacteria commonly found in food products.  When culturing under optimal conditions, the natural compounds that enhance the fresh keeping of food are intentionally produced.  After the cultures have consumed the carbohydrate source and the fermentation is complete, the culture is typically pasteurized to eliminate the microorganisms from the blend.  The product can be evaporated, concentrated and standardized prior to use by food manufacturers.  Fermentation products can then be used for colour, texture, flavour and shelf life enhancement in non-fermented food.  Depending on regional legislation, these products may be labelled on a finished product as “Cultured” followed by the carbohydrate source used (i.e. Cultured Sugar or Cultured Milk).

How are fermentation-derived ingredients being used for fresh-keeping in food today?

Fermentation-derived ingredients are being used today in multiple food categories from bakery and meats, to soups, sauces and dressings.  These ingredients are made from food, for food and are a key ally in natural food safety methods (in food safety and preservation) – think back to fresh milk versus cheese and how long each would last in your fridge?  It is interesting that the same bacteria responsible for making the characteristic holes in Swiss Cheese also make a product which can delay mould growth in bread.

The use of beneficial food-derived microorganisms to preserve food, in the case of cheese processing, prevents other spoilage organisms from ruining the taste or other qualities of our food.  It also prevents the growth of undesirable microorganisms that can cause illness.  Fermentation derived ingredients that preserve quality and prevent spoilage can be added to a food during processing as a more efficient way of delivering benefits to the food product in a more consistent manner. It is important to note that the use level of a cultured or fermented product for preservation may vary, depending on the need, the food, and any regional legislation.

Food scientists are constantly innovating to provide healthier and more nutritionally valid solutions for the fresh keeping of the food we eat. There is a long list of considerations when using a fermentation derived ingredient to ensure a good result.

• What are the food product’s characteristics – pH, water activity, titratable acidity, etc.
• What are the food product’s manufacturing conditions?
• What are the food product’s storage conditions?
• What are the spoilage or disease microorganisms of primary concern? This will be determined based on the answers to the questions above.
• What is the food product’s desired shelf life?
• What are the food product’s labelling requirements? Allergens? Certifications?
• Does the food product currently contain a synthetic preservative?

What is the future evolution of fermentation?

Fermentation-derived ingredients are only one tool in a food product developer’s toolbox for creating safe food.  There is no silver bullet, even with artificial preservatives, to eliminate all microbial concerns in foods and the solution will change depending on the food product and its characteristics.  There are currently food applications without an effective, clean label solution to control shelf life without imparting a negative flavour or cost.  Future work is still needed and, the fermented ingredients used for preservation can be enhanced when optimum food processing, packaging, atmosphere and storage conditions are selected.  Therefore, additional work should also include a review of the effectiveness of the fermented ingredients with optimization of the product recipe, process and packaging.

Key Takeaways:

• Fermentation has been used to preserve foods for thousands of years and has evolved so that traditionally non-fermented foods can also reap its rewards.
• The advancement of fermented ingredients has helped reduce the use of chemical preservatives used in foods.
• Fermentation-derived ingredients can be a potential solution be used to achieve colour (in meat), flavour, texture or shelf life objectives.
• Each fermentation-derived ingredient has different functionality, so it’s important to understand the food process and application to choose the appropriate one for your needs.
• Fermentation-derived ingredients, used in combination with other ingredient and processing parameters, will maintain the freshness of food as efficiently as chemical or synthetic preservatives, but with label friendly ingredients.