KHNI’s webinar titled “Solving Sodium – Insights, Science & Strategies to help you navigate the salt space,” provided unique perspectives and current global initiatives surrounding sodium reduction in food/beverages.

Excessive sodium intake is linked to an estimated 1.89 million cardiovascular disease related deaths each year. The global average sodium intake is more than double the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation of <2000 mg of sodium (equivalent to <5 g of salt) per day in adults. Reducing sodium in foods is therefore a priority for many governments with more than a quarter of the worlds population living in countries with mandatory measures towards sodium reduction. However, there are challenges around reducing sodium in foods such as taste, texture and preservation.

In this webinar, experts focused on the urgent global health crisis posed by excessive salt consumption. The webinar delved into the multifaceted dimensions of salt reduction efforts, exploring effective policies, industry challenges, innovative solutions, and the commitment of companies to sustainable nutrition. Our experts highlighted the challenges and opportunities for future innovation in the ever-evolving sodium reduction market by answering questions such as;

1. What is the current global regulatory landscape for sodium and what public health initiatives are working / not working?
2. Innovation in sodium reduction leverages contemporary taste and smell neuroscience and state of art fermentation technologies. What are the latest scientific developments in the area of taste modulation for sodium perception?
3. Case studies to demonstrate what are the challenges and solutions for reducing sodium in different applications (such as preservation)?

This webinar offers valuable insights into the evolving global landscape of sodium reduction. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the regulatory challenges and opportunities for sodium reduction, explore the latest advancements in sodium reduction technology, and learn from successful product innovation case studies. Join the conversation that will shape the future of sodium reduction and help address this global health crisis.

One strategy to improve public health is to reformulate foods to be healthier, which can have an effect at a population-level and does not necessarily rely on individual behaviour change to improve health.  This can be initiated voluntarily by the food and beverage industry.  For example, some companies have set public goals for reducing a nutrient like sodium in their foods by a certain percentage over a time period.  In some parts of the world, reformulation is mandated.  Greater improvements in sodium intakes have been shown in countries where is it mandatory rather than voluntary.

A recent scientific review titled “What is the impact of food reformulation on individuals’ behaviour, nutrient intakes and health status? A systematic review of empirical evidence” summarises our existing knowledge of how effective food reformulation can be as a public health strategy by analysing results of 35 published studies.

Results from the review

The review analysed results from 35 published studies on food reformulation.

Consumers were accepting of reformulation of foods in the marketplace

A promising finding was that consumers still purchased reformulated products, meaning they didn’t specifically avoid foods formulated to be healthier. 22 different studies showed improvements in the nutrient content of the average consumer basket (total food purchased from a store).

81% of studies showed positive results for consumer acceptability of reformulated foods, based on comparing sales/purchases of the reformulated product before and after reformulation

 

Reformulation improved nutrient intake

73% of studies showed that reformulation improved nutrient intakes of consumers

Sodium reformulation led to a decrease in sodium intake between 4%-15% per year, depending on study population.  Analysing studies from Europe and the US, the review found that daily population-wide salt intake after reformulation was 0.57g lower than before (equivalent to 221mg sodium), or equivalent to around 10% of the daily limit of 5 grams per day recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Trans fat reformulation led to decreased intakes of 38-85%.  This value is much higher than sodium because mandated trans fat reformulation laws require drastic reductions due to its clear link to heart disease.  Partially hydrogenated oils, which are the main source of artificial trans fat in the diet, are not considered safe for the food supply in the United States, for example.  In Europe, there is a maximum limit of 2 grams of trans fat per 100 grams of total fat in a food.

Trans fat reformulation and decreased mortality

Of the 6 studies which measured the impact of nutrient intake on morbidity or mortality rates, 5 showed a positive effect on reducing mortality

Five of the studies measuring effects on health status looked at trans fat reformulation and found that reducing trans fat in the food supply led to a reduction in mortality of 4.3-6.2%.

Sodium reformulation led to an improvement in blood pressure measurements in the UK.  These findings show promise for nutrient reformulations to affect public health in a positive way.

Challenges for nutrient reformulation

Taste

Reducing nutrients that contribute strongly to the taste of a food or beverage, like sodium or sugar, without reducing consumer liking is the main challenge when it comes to nutrient reformulation.

For sugar, low-calorie sweeteners can drastically reduce total sugar content of a food or beverage.  However, these sweeteners have their own challenges.  They have poor perception among many consumers, and also bring their own flavour off-notes with them.  They are also not recommended as a long-term strategy for reducing sugar content in foods by authority publications like the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Sodium reduction faces similar challenges because alternatives to sodium, like potassium chloride, also have off-notes.  Many companies will slowly decrease sodium content in foods over a period of years because sodium sensing is adaptive.  In other words, the less sodium someone is used to tasting, the less they need in a food to stimulate the same salty sensations.  Gradually reducing sodium over time will be unnoticed by many consumers, as a result.

Flavour modulation, which can enhance the inherent sweetness in sugar, mask off-notes, or enhance mouthfeel or saltiness, is a great tool for nutrient reformulation.  This technology is one way to reduce sugar without requiring low-calorie sweeteners or to mask notes of sodium or sugar alternatives.

Functionality

Sugar, sodium, and certain fats have roles in food beyond taste.  Both sugar and sodium can have roles in food safety, as well as important roles in chemical reactions for many baked foods.  These nutrients also have roles in moisture migration, shelf life, etc.  Finding ways to minimise the impact of nutrient reformulation requires a system-level approach and in-depth expertise in food science and applications.

Fibres are seeing some popularity in low-sugar foods and beverages because of their ability to contribute bulk and mouthfeel, as well as sweetness in the case of some fibres.  Fibre is under-consumed in many populations, so this could have additional benefits to public health.

Consumer perception

Due to the taste and functionality challenges listed above, many consumers will associate nutrient reformulations with less taste.

“Consumer acceptance is a key driver of the effectiveness of reformulation in changing dietary intakes, in the absence of which unwarranted substitutions may take place.”

The review summarised in this article found that, despite having high consumer acceptance, compensation for the nutrient content of reformulated foods did occur.  Some studies did not find a link between reformulation and decreased intakes, or smaller decreases than predicted.

This happened more often when reformulation was noticed by consumers, possibly due to it being advertised on a package.  Silent reformulation is one strategy that could be used to reduce the effect of compensation.

The study’s findings encourage future reformulation efforts

“Given the challenges involved in changing behaviours and food choices, reformulation can provide the means to improve dietary intakes and health by changing the environment in which people make their food choices. Nonetheless, the success of reformulation as a public health strategy crucially depends on the breadth of products reformulated and the extent to which they are reformulated.”

The study did not address energy density or calorie reduction, which is another reformulation initiative that is important to address the global obesity issue.  Developing knowledge in sensory science and food science is critical to the future of not only calorie reduction, but nutrient reformulation as a whole.

Researchers provided study participants either creamy tomato soup or custard in four fat concentrations (0, 7.5, 15, or 30% fat), combined with four salt concentrations in the soup (0.04, 0.35, 0.7, or 1.5%), and four sugar concentrations in the custard (0.56, 4.5, 9, 18%). The goal was to determine the extent to which fat content impacted perception of salt or sweet flavors, as well as overall liking.

When it came to salt, the relationship was simple: fat and salt independently affected how much participants enjoyed the soup. In other words, more salt=tasty, and more fat=tasty. The relationship was more complicated for sugar in the custard, though. Although fat and sugar both impacted how much participants enjoyed the custard, there was also an interaction between the two nutrients that affected how pleasant the custard tasted. This could mean that more sugar+more fat=tastier than having more of either alone.

The study findings have interesting implications for the food and beverage industry. The researchers noted that sugar and salt both had stronger impact on liking of the foods than fat content. However, with the strong drive to reduce sugar and salt across product categories, keeping fat at reasonable levels in products could help solve some of the taste challenges that come with reduction of these nutrients.

With busy lifestyles, many consumers are relying on the food industry for convenient and affordable sources for meals. There is a big emphasis not only on the cost and nutritional value of these options, but also on the taste and eating experience from the purchased items. Flavors play an essential role in enhancing the taste experience. This experience, which includes aspects like flavor, aroma, and mouthfeel, becomes more important in the case of healthy food options where fat, sugar, salt and calories reduction are emphasized.  Flavors are extremely essential in rebalancing the taste profiles associated with removal of excess fat, sugar, salt. For example, a reduced fat ranch dressing may be improved with the addition of dairy flavors that would give the perception of creaminess that is reduced when the actual fat component is lowered. In diet sodas, the replacement of sugar with a high-intensity sweetener usually results in off-tastes of the sweetener, i.e. bitter/ metallic notes, lingering sweetness and loss of mouthfeel.

These off-notes can be reduced and improved upon with the addition of flavors. Nutritionally enriched food items such as meal replacement/nutrition beverages or bars fortified with high amounts of protein, vitamins and minerals come with a lot of taste challenges. Proteins often have strong flavors that can create off-notes, or can interact with vitamin and minerals and create flavors frequently described as bitter, beany, metallic and chalky. Flavor solutions can help reduce the off-note perception of the nutritional enrichment. In short, flavors are very much an essential tool for the food manufacturer in the pursuit of introducing healthier, cost-effective and also good-tasting food options to the consumer.

Natural Flavors

Currently, the trend for natural flavors has been on the rise due to the consumer’s desire for wholesome and minimally processed foods. With the advent of food bloggers such as the Food Babe and also natural and organic food movements, there has been an even bigger momentum for food manufacturers to move away from artificial additives in food and replace them with natural ingredients, such as natural flavors, in their food.  The definition of healthy is expanding to include foods without additives and with easy-to-read ingredients, similar to a food that was home-cooked. Common requests from consumers include: does not contain artificial flavors, colors or preservatives, GMO-free, and free from pesticides and hormones.

However, unlike the label ‘organic’, which has a fixed set of rules and regulations in order to receive the correct labelling status, the label ‘natural’ in the US is not regulated. Natural flavors can be briefly described as an extract derived from foods (plant, animal, spice etc.) or from a ‘natural’ process such as fermentation and enzymatic conversion. The Flavor & Extracts Manufacturers Association (FEMA) provides additional description of natural flavors here.

In the EU, there are more specific regulations and guidelines for the labelling of natural flavors.  Flavorings can be labelled with the term “natural” only if their flavoring part consist of entirely “natural flavoring substances” and/or “flavoring preparations”. The definitions of these natural flavoring components include the source materials they are obtained from and the processes they are obtained by. The specific descriptions of natural flavorings  labelling would depend on what is present in the flavoring part and the flavor perception how they were made i.e. natural flavoring, natural flavoring substances, natural (example) raspberry flavoring and natural (example) strawberry flavoring with other natural flavorings. For a named natural flavor, for example natural orange flavoring, at least 95% (by weight) of the flavor must originate from orange and the flavor perception of the named source needs to be easily recognized. For the other type of natural flavor label, e.g. ‘natural orange with other natural flavorings’, flavoring components derived from orange are present and their flavor can easily be recognized. For the other ‘natural flavorings’ in this label, the flavors can be derived from different source materials other than orange.

Challenges with Natural Flavors

The use and sourcing of natural flavors are not without its challenges. Natural flavors are usually more expensive to manufacture and also not as potent as their synthetic counterparts. For example, a vanilla extract made from the extraction process of vanilla beans costs significantly more than synthetic vanillin. Because natural flavors are not usually as potent as synthetic, a higher dosage of flavor will have to be used which would increase cost in use (CIU) in the final product. There are also problems associated with obtaining raw materials for natural flavor extraction. For example, vanilla crop yield is very susceptible to poor weather conditions and also unstable political/ humanitarian situations and citrus based flavors which have been severely impacted in the past decade and a half by the greening disease. The greening disease is caused by the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus which results in diseased, unhealthy trees with small, dark green fruit with bitter tasting juice. There is no cure for this disease except by the burning of the infected trees to prevent further transmission of the bacterium and this has severely reduced and affected citrus production in the USA, Brazil, Asia and other part of the world.

The Future of Natural Flavors

There have been many groups advocating for a formal regulatory process to obtain the ‘natural’ labelling status for foods and flavors, as is seen in the case of ‘organic’ labelling which has very strict and defined guidelines. In the US, the FDA is in the process of evaluating the status of the ‘natural’ label. With an even stronger demand by consumers for foods which are free of additives, preservatives and flavors (both natural and unnatural), there might be a push to even remove the label ‘flavor’ entirely from processed foods.  This would pose definite challenges on food processors to deliver good tasting foods without flavors. Labelling of the flavors might also be changed, e.g. in a cheese flavor, it would not be declared as a flavor but as cheese, water and enzymes instead. There might be more of a push from the food industry to modify the way a food is processed and the base ingredients used to maximize flavor development of a product instead of topical application of a flavor. For example, slow roasting of a food to develop complex savory flavors. This would lead to higher costs of the final product which the consumer must be willing to bear in exchange for removing items like natural flavors from food labels.