Salt reduction technologies: Ohly discusses yeast extracts to limit sodium amid consumer demand

As regulatory pressure to reduce sodium intensifies, food manufacturers face the challenge of reformulating popular products without losing flavor appeal. Summer is a critical period for savory foods like barbecue meats, dips, and salty snacks, making salt reduction strategies especially important for brands seeking to meet health guidelines while satisfying consumer expectations. 

To explore practical solutions, Food Ingredients First speaks with Daria Pashkova, product and marketing manager at Ohly. The company develops yeast-based ingredients designed to support sodium reduction by preserving savoury flavour profiles in demanding applications such as snacks and marinades.

Salt reduction challenges

Governments worldwide are introducing stricter sodium reduction targets and front-of-pack labeling rules to address links between salt intake, hypertension, and heart disease. For brands, this has raised the stakes on reformulating popular products.

“Salt is essential for enhancing flavor and appealing to consumers who enjoy savoury foods,” Pashkova notes. “But simply lowering salt content can drastically change overall taste perception and negatively impact the consumer experience.”

Studies have shown that substituting or reducing salt can make products taste flat or unbalanced, especially in barbecue sauces or marinades where salt not only seasons but also preserves. According to Pashkova, “When reformulating existing successful products, the challenge is even greater because salt reduction can result in products tasting unfamiliar, leading to poor consumer acceptance and declining sales.”

Yeast extracts as a natural flavor solution

A major strategy for maintaining consumer appeal lies in clean label ingredients that deliver natural flavor enhancement. Yeast extracts, derived through fermentation, are rich in glutamic acid, nucleotides and peptides — components that work synergistically to boost umami and perceived salinity, Pashkova explains.

“When yeast extracts are added to food, their glutamic acid content interacts with specific taste receptors on the tongue known as umami receptors. This interaction brings out the overall umami taste perception in the dish, reducing the need for salt.”

Unlike salt replacers that often come with trade-offs in flavor or mouthfeel (for example, potassium chloride’s metallic aftertaste), yeast extracts can be tailored to target off-notes.

“By utilizing different yeast strains and manipulating the amino acid and nucleotide content, we can design products that mask specific off-notes from ingredients like potassium chloride,” she says. “For potassium chloride, there is a lingering aftertaste that can be bitter or metallic. We use a specific strain that helps make other flavor components linger longer on the palate, thereby masking those off-tastes.”

Flexibility across applications

The versatility of yeast-based ingredients is key to their appeal for formulators working across different product types.

“There are not typically many challenges to utilising yeast extracts across applications like snacks and marinades,” Pashkova notes. “But there are limitations on how much sodium you can reduce in a product.”

Some of Ohly’s yeast extracts are designed to enhance mouthfeel or kokumi in creamy dips, sauces, and soups.

Yeast extracts can also support mouthfeel — a property that is increasingly important in reformulating lower-fat or plant-based products. “Some yeast extracts are specially designed for mouthfeel or kokumi enhancement so you can use them to bring fatty richness to low-fat or protein-rich creamy dips, sauces, and soups,” Pashkova explains.

Consumer acceptance and preference

One frequent question from brands is whether low-sodium reformulations can really match the taste of full-sodium originals.

“Salt reduction solutions don’t typically create total parity with full-sodium snacks, so we focus on consumer liking and acceptance,” says Pashkova. She points to Ohly’s Provesta 512, a yeast extract designed to bring out the true flavor profile of other ingredients. “We can achieve consumer liking scores above those of full-sodium concepts.”

“When you reduce salt in a formulation, the experience can be disappointing for consumers,” she says. “A yeast extract is a great solution for enhancing the flavour experience to avoid that disappointment. In fact, they’re so good at bringing out flavor that you may need to adjust other ingredients and spices to prevent them from becoming too intense and bringing imbalance to the taste profile.”

Market demand and strategic advice

The demand for low-sodium, clean-label formulations is set to grow. “Many countries are creating new front-of-pack nutritional labelling guidelines to highlight sodium levels,” Pashkova observes.

“We’ve seen increased interest in Asia Pacific and the Americas, where many convenience foods and snacks now require these front-of-pack labels and brands want to stand out with lower sodium.”

She says that brands looking to reformulate popular summer snacks should “focus on delivering a great flavor experience. That might mean adjusting more ingredients than just salt. Yeast extracts and culinary powders can bring unique flavor experiences and set your products apart from the competition more than standard umami ingredients.”