Hi & Fi Asia-China 2024: Angel Yeast wins innovation award for enzymatic alternative to MSG in soy sauce

25 Jun 2024 --- Soy sauce is one of China’s most widely consumed foods, with a history of production and intake dating back thousands of years. Recent regulations are trying to bring the authentic product back to consumers, reports Angel Enzyme, with legislation from December 2019 stating that products listed as “originally brewed soy sauce” cannot contain food additives like MSG.

In response to the growing clean label trend, Angel Enzyme began manufacturing glutaminase in China, which can completely replace the need for additives in soy sauce. This innovation landed the company the Food Tech Innovation Award at Hi & Fi Asia-China, which took place last week in Shanghai.

On the show floor, Food Ingredients First spoke with Lei Ping, general manager of Angel Enzyme, the newly formed biotech branch of Angel Yeast, established in 2021. The company focuses on enzymes for food processing to enhance taste and functionality for more clean label solutions. 

Need for enzymes
The project to develop Angel Enzyme began in 2011 with the construction of its first factory and the building up of its R&D team. It was created to support its mother company, Angel Yeast, which requires enzymes to process its core business of yeast extracts.

Angel Enzyme received the Food Tech Innovation Award for its glutaminase enzyme. “Angel Yeast used to rely on outside suppliers for enzymes, but now we have the technology and manufacturing capabilities to produce these completely on our own.” 

Angel Enzyme’s second factory opened in the same industrial park as Angel Yeast in Yichang last year, strengthening its position for both domestic and international markets. 

Ji Tian, a sales manager for Angel Enzyme, tells Food Ingredients First that the company’s latest expansion has “shaken up” the world market for enzymes.

“There used to be only a few multinationals selling the types of enzymes that we can now produce,” he says.

“Since we have come onto the market, we have been able to offer a high-quality product with lower costs due to lower labor costs in China. This has been a challenge for the other enzyme suppliers on the market who go to us for the lower prices.” 

The company is also a contract development and manufacturing organization, which can help brands register new ingredients in China and manufacture their own enzymes at Angel Enzyme’s facility.

Glutaminase’s wide-reaching impact 
Speaking on the success of the Food Tech Innovation Award, Ping states that “it encourages us to develop more useful enzymes in the food industry ahead.”

“Glutaminase is just one enzyme — but it will have a far-reaching impact on the food industry in China.”

Angel Yeast’s booth included both its new enzyme business and nutraceuticals brand Maiggic.Glutaminase is naturally produced by microorganisms involved in the natural fermentation of soy sauce, but the product’s high salt content restricts the enzyme activity.

Angel Enzyme’s glutaminase solution is tolerant in high salt conditions, allowing it to unlock more umami flavor by releasing L-glutamic acid from the naturally occurring glutamine, rather than being irreversibly converted into “tasteless” pyroglutamic acid due to a non-enzymatic carbonization reaction. 

Additionally, a subcategory of glutaminase can be used in other industries such as alt-milk, to improve the taste, appearance and quality, besides being used to formulate additive-free soy sauce, Ping tells us.

More from Angel Yeast ahead
In the past, Angel Yeast used to only produce yeast, but it has expanded in recent years and Angel Enzyme is one of their latest expansions using biotechnology, says Tian.

“In the future, the company plans to diversify its products to bring more to the market so we can serve other companies that offer different kinds of food products.”

In 2021, Angel Yeast further expanded into the nutraceuticals market with the establishment of Magic Health. The company is a joint venture between Huadong Medicine and Angel Yeast and is specialized in R&D and manufacturing of nutraceutical and personal care ingredients based on microbial technology. 

Under the brand Maiggic, Magic Health displayed a wide range of nutraceutical products created through biotechnology, such as PQQ, PS and vitamin K2. 

By Missy Green