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Savoury flavour ingredients – Opportunity for food industry
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Saturday, 29 March, 2014, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Russell Ward
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fiogf49gjkf0d A recent global supply/demand analysis carried out by Giract, the transnational food ingredients consultancy, has shown that the global market for savoury flavour ingredients is valued at over US$5 billion. Moreover, global demand is growing rapidly, especially in Asia.
India, despite being the second-largest food producer worldwide, after China, accounts for only around 0.2% of global consumption of savoury flavour ingredients. Why is India missing out the opportunity offered by these ingredients?
Major savoury flavour ingredients
The major savoury flavour ingredients used globally are yeast extract; hydrolysed vegetable protein; hydrolysed animal protein; monosodium glutamate; and ribonucleotides (disodium 5’-guanylate and disodium 5’-inosinate). The latter are particularly effective when used in combination with other savoury flavour ingredients. Ribonucleotides boost the effectiveness of other savoury flavour ingredients.
All these ingredients contribute to give foods the so-called umami character. Umami comes from Japanese and can best be translated into English as "pleasant savoury taste." Umami was first scientifically identified in 1908 by Kikunae Ikeda, professor, Tokyo Imperial University. He found that glutamate was responsible for the palatability of the broth from Kombu seaweed and named the taste umami.
Many foods are rich in umami. Notably umami contributes to the taste of fish, cured meats, shellfish, mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, many vegetables and fermented or aged products, such as cheeses, shrimp pastes, or most especially soy sauce. Humans are conditioned from birth to recognise, and be attracted to, the taste of glutamate as human breast milk is particularly rich in glutamate.
The most widely used
Probably the best known, and certainly the most widely used, savoury flavour ingredient globally is monosodium glutamate. This mimics and enhances the glutamate naturally present in food. Global production of monosodium glutamate amounts to over 3.6 million tonne annually with the vast majority of this produced and consumed in China and SE Asia. In India, monosodium glutamate consumption is modest and amounts to only around 8,000 tonne per year. Main uses are in soups, noodles and ready meals with a large proportion of the monosodium glutamate used in India going into food service applications.
Why is monosodium glutamate usage so small in India when it is used in such large quantities elsewhere? Until 2006 use of monosodium glutamate was forbidden under Part 64B of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act 1955. An amendment published in 2006 authorised use of monosodium glutamate in many types of processed foods. Restrictions on monosodium glutamate remain for products consumed by infants below 12 months and many fresh, unprocessed foods. However, changing opinions and habits takes time and as a result monosodium glutamate usage in India is restricted to modern categories of convenience foods such as noodles.
Alternatives
Alternatives to monosodium glutamate, which are not restricted under Indian legislation include yeast extract and hydrolysed vegetable protein. Yeast extract is produced by breaking down the yeast cell walls and filtering to remove the cell wall material. The resulting liquid, which may be dried to form a powder, gives foods a pleasant savoury character. Hydrolysed vegetable protein is produced by treating protein from corn, wheat or soy with acid or by using a combination of enzymes. Hydrolysed vegetable protein can be used as an alternative to yeast extract.
The flavour characteristics of yeast extract or hydrolysed vegetable protein can be tailored to give a range of different profiles with more or less meaty character. Both are suitable for vegetarian foods, important in India, as the meaty character comes from the presence of different combinations of amino acids and degradation products rather than from any kind of animal products.
Outside India both yeast extract and hydrolysed vegetable protein are widely used to boost the flavour of a variety of foods including soups, sauces, gravies, ready meals, and seasonings for snack foods and savoury dishes.
The global market for yeast extract is considerably more than 100,000 t annually; while that for hydrolysed vegetable protein is well in excess of 200,000 t. The largest end-use categories globally are in sauces, seasonings and dehydrated noodles. It is hydrolysed vegetable protein, which gives Nestlé’s Maggi seasoning and many major brands of noodles their characteristic flavours. The global split by end-use is illustrated in
Figure 1 – Global end-use categories for hydrolysed vegetable Protein
In some markets, most notably in China, Taiwan, and in Korea, hydrolysed animal protein competes with hydrolysed vegetable protein as a savoury flavour ingredient. Hydrolysed animal protein would not be acceptable as a food ingredient in India where a vegetarian source for is desirable.
Savoury flavour ingredients in India
Why is the market for savoury flavour ingredients in India so small when markets are booming elsewhere in the world and particularly in Asia? This is, in part, due to India’s rich heritage and tradition of using various combinations of spices in food. In heavily spiced food the softer umami flavour character is not readily perceivable. The tradition in India of preparing food immediately before consumption also reduces the need to use savoury flavour ingredients, such as monosodium glutamate.
Currently the main foods in India in which savoury flavour ingredients are used are convenience foods such as dehydrated noodles, soups or ready meals. Giract’s recent study of the use of these ingredients showed that by volume monosodium glutamate is the most important savoury flavour ingredient used in Indian cooking. This ingredient, and the ribonucleotides which are sometime used to boost the effectiveness of monosodium glutamate, is imported from China or other countries in SE Asia.
What about yeast extract or hydrolysed vegetable protein? These ingredients are produced in small quantities in India but there is very limited use as savoury flavour ingredients in food in India. Yeast extract, which, in addition to its role as a savoury flavouring, is an excellent nutrient for fermentation finds its way mainly into industrial applications such as production of pharmaceutical products. Hydrolysed vegetable protein produced in India is largely exported to markets where it is a more popular food ingredient.
Do these ingredients have a role to play in Indian cuisine? Changing living patterns with strong growth in urban populations and increased demand for both restaurant meals and convenience foods from cash-rich, time-poor, urban consumers will drive demand for savoury flavour ingredients. Giract’s study found that above average growth can be expected in demand for savoury flavour ingredients in India as cooking and eating habits change.
Where are the opportunities for the Indian food industry?
Who will benefit from increasing in demand for savoury flavour ingredients? Will it be the Indian food ingredients industry or exporters in neighbouring countries, which are ready and waiting to supply India’s growing demand? At present it seems that it is India’s neighbours particularly China, which are set to benefit from changes in eating habits in India.
What can the Indian food industry do to benefit from this emerging demand? Yeast extract can be produced either from baker’s yeast or from leftover yeast from brewing. Indians may not be the world’s biggest per capita consumers of beer. However, a total of 20 million hectolitre was consumed in 2012 and such a large quantity provides ample raw material for yeast extract production.
Alternatively the production of hydrolysed vegetable protein, by acid hydrolysis, is well within the reach of India’s booming food ingredient industry. This is an opportunity for those who are ready to seize it.
China is on the way to becoming a major global supplier of savoury flavouring ingredients. The Chinese producer Fufeng will overtake Ajinomoto of Japan to become the world’s largest supplier of monosodium glutamate in 2013. Similarly China’s yeast extract and hydrolysed vegetable protein producers have the world savoury flavour ingredient markets in their sights. Is the Indian food ingredient industry leaving the Chinese to dominate the world market? The opportunities have been identified in Giract’s global study of the savoury flavour ingredients market and are there for those who are ready to take them.
(The author is a managing partner, Giract, Switzerland, where he also serves as research & marketing director. He can be contacted at rward@giract.com)
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