Bluegrass Ingredients’ dairy concentrates pegged “game-changer” in reducing freight costs and adding flavor

14 Jul 2022 --- US food ingredients supplier Bluegrass Ingredients has brought 20 dairy concentrates to market, including a vegan cheese formulation which helps reduce freight costs and supply chain challenges. These concentrates will also allow manufacturers to add more cheese flavor to products without adding caloric-rich cheese.

“Concentrates and enzyme-modified cheeses (EMCs) deliver deep, specific and customizable, targeted cheese flavor profiles. They have a long, consistent and reliable shelf life with no risk of undesirable off-flavor development, with the added benefit of lower storage and transportation costs,” Chad Mitchell, director business development concentrates, Bluegrass Ingredients, tells FoodIngredientsFirst.

Concentrates and EMCs have operational and logistical advantages as their flavor potency and concentration allow for a lower-end usage rate, resulting in lower transportation and storage costs. 

Reduced freight and storage costs
EMCs are created by treating ingredients with natural enzymes that enhance flavor and texture. 

Bluegrass has responded to the growth within the concentrates market as more manufacturers recognize the advantages of concentrates, such as intense flavor profiles, reduced freight and storage costs, and ease of use.  

“Many products rely on aged cheeses like cheddar or parmesan to deliver a rich, cheesy flavor,” Mitchell continues. “The challenge for many food manufacturers today is that these traditional cheeses require time to mature and age, are subject to flavor variation from vat to vat, and often require grading and monitoring for potential issues, such as mold and flavor variation, over time.”Dairy concentrates allow manufacturers to add cheese flavors to many products without adding more cheese. (Credit: Bluegrass Ingredients) 

“These traditional cheeses can carry significant cost premiums and are also subject to fluctuations in price with the underlying dairy markets.” 

“Concentrates and EMCs offer high levels of taste and texture consistency with a very consistent product on a batch-to-batch basis,” states Mitchell. 

Block cheeses also require grinding and processing before use, and pre-ground or shredded cheeses will have additional shelf life challenges and cost premiums. 

“From Italian dishes to queso dips, we’ve seen concentrates become a go-to ingredient for R&D professionals looking to add more intense cheese flavors without adding more cheese, which can be expensive and impact a product’s health profile,” adds Peter Losee, vice president of marketing, Bluegrass Ingredients.

Concentrates with claims
The company’s Agile Ingredient Innovation service model is a trend monitoring tool to engage collaborative R&D with clients. 

“One area we continuously focus on with clients, on the R&D front, is using concentrates to enhance the nutritional content of their products. Concentrates can replace cheeses in applications while delivering similar mouthfeel and flavor attributes, and at the same time offer the potential to enable nutritional benefits, such as lower sodium, fat and total caloric reduction, in the final applications,” Mitchell outlines.

“By replacing traditional cheese with concentrates, there’s an opportunity to make the end products healthier, but it takes effort to maintain other aspects like mouthfeel and texture.”Bluegrass' range of dairy concentrates comes in a wide variety of cheese flavors.

The new concentrates are clean label and certified kosher. The range includes a cheddar cheese ingredient, natural cream flavor, Romano cheese and Parmesan cheese. 

The concentrates include strong cheese cracker flavor, strong sour cream, strong American cheese, strong cheddar cheese, strong blue cheese, American cheese, Romano cheese, Parmesan cheese, blue cheese and vegan cheez.

“That range gives us a greater number of reference points for formulating a custom concentrate for a specific client need,” says Mitchell.

The vegan cheez concentrate is plant-based and consists of water, coconut oil, salt, modified food starch, yeast extract, natural flavor, lactic acid, xanthan gum and citric acid.  

The company also touts butter concentrates, including strong brown butter, strong butter, butter and brown butter.

In similar industry developments, Butter Buds developed an oil-based solution that allows manufacturers to replace block butter in many formulations, such as bakery products.

Industry specialists have also recently revealed that “mindful indulgence,” protein fortification, gut health, and products with a health halo dominate the dairy indulgent space. Meanwhile, Whey protein and dairy permeate are also enjoying sustained popularity.

Also, Eurial I&N previously launched its whey protein concentrate ingredient EuriNutri WPC 80, with 80% protein content. The WPC comes from “sweet whey” from its Herbignac plant in Brittany, France.

By Inga de Jong