Ohly targets taste gap in healthier convenience foods with yeast-based ingredients

Convenience food manufacturers trying to cut sodium or increase their use of plant proteins face a familiar problem: improving a product's nutritional profile can also change the way it tastes.

Ohly believes specialty yeast ingredients can help close that gap, using their natural umami and savory characteristics to restore flavor, mask unwanted notes and improve the eating experience of reformulated foods.

• Ohly sees specialty yeast ingredients as a way to preserve taste as convenience food manufacturers reduce sodium and incorporate more plant-based proteins.
• Yeast-based ingredients can enhance umami and savory notes, increase perceived salinity and help mask bitter, metallic or beany flavors introduced during reformulation.
• Daria Pashkova says healthier ready meals still need the depth, complexity and enjoyment consumers expect from more indulgent or traditionally prepared foods.

The challenge is becoming more prominent as consumers look for convenience products that combine speed and ease with attributes such as higher protein, more fiber, lower sodium and plant-based ingredients. According to figures cited by Ohly, more than three in five consumers globally eat convenience or ready-to-eat foods at least once a week, while one in five consume them more than once a day.

The UK is a particularly established market. Ohly said nine in 10 UK consumers eat ready meals, with more than half of households regularly buying pre-prepared convenience foods.

For manufacturers, however, nutritional reformulation can introduce technical problems that extend well beyond the nutrition label. Reducing salt can make a familiar product taste noticeably different, while increasing plant protein content can introduce bitterness, beany notes or other flavors that need to be managed.

Daria Pashkova, Marketing Manager at Ohly, believes manufacturers need to treat enjoyment as part of the reformulation process rather than assuming consumers will accept a compromise in return for better nutritional credentials.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to choose between food that’s good for them and food that tastes nice. As consumers become more interested in the nutritional content of meals, manufacturers have an opportunity to rethink what better-for-you really means.”

Sodium reduction is one area where that balance can be particularly difficult. The World Health Organization recommends adults consume less than 2,000mg of sodium a day, equivalent to less than 5g of salt.

Removing salt from a formulation is not simply a matter of reducing sodium content. Salt also affects flavor perception and can enhance the characteristics of other ingredients. Cutting it can therefore leave a product tasting flatter or less savory than the version consumers are accustomed to.

Replacing some sodium chloride with potassium chloride presents another issue because potassium chloride can contribute bitter or metallic notes.

Ohly said yeast-based taste modulation ingredients can help manufacturers compensate for these effects by increasing the perception of upfront salinity, balancing savory flavors and masking unwanted notes associated with salt replacements.

Yeast-based ingredients naturally contain glutamic acid and nucleotides, compounds associated with umami and savory flavor. Rather than simply adding another individual flavor, they can be used to enhance and balance flavors already present in a formulation.

Similar principles apply when manufacturers replace meat with plant proteins in ready meals and other convenience products.

Meat contributes several sensory characteristics simultaneously, including savory flavor, umami, juiciness and mouthfeel. Plant proteins can lack some of those characteristics while contributing their own undesirable notes, creating a more complicated formulation challenge than simply reproducing a recognizable meat flavor.

Ohly said specialty yeast ingredients can contribute roasted and savory characteristics, increase the perception of juiciness and fatty mouthfeel, and use umami to help mask off-notes from plant proteins.

That makes flavor modulation potentially useful across two reformulation trends at once. Manufacturers can use it to support sodium reduction while also addressing some of the sensory challenges encountered when incorporating plant-based proteins.

For Pashkova, the test is whether healthier convenience products can deliver the kind of experience consumers would expect from a meal chosen primarily for enjoyment.

“Ready meals, in particular, need to offer more than convenience. They need to be something consumers eat for enjoyment or indulgence, with the flavours, depth and complexity they would expect in a meal prepared from scratch.”

The same consideration applies as manufacturers pursue products with more protein and fiber or reformulate established recipes to meet changing nutritional expectations. A stronger nutritional profile may help attract consumers initially, but repeat purchases still depend heavily on the experience of eating the product.

“Ultimately, manufacturers need to bring together nutrition, convenience, and enjoyment,” Pashkova said. “Flavour innovation will be essential to this: making healthier choices just as appealing as the familiar meals consumers already know and love.”

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