KEY INTERVIEW: Sodium Replacement is Possible, But Reformulation is Key

17 Aug 2015 --- The salt mines of K+S in Germany have been producing high quality salt for one and a half centuries, so the opening of the K+S Health Care and Nutrition division just four years ago may seem a late development. However, as Vice President – Head of Unit Health Care & Nutrition Alexander Baart told FoodIngredientsFirst, as the largest supplier of potassium and magnesium salts to the food, feed and pharmaceutical industries, K+S leads the way in the formulation and reformulation of foods to optimise their salt content.

Today’s food and beverage market is dominated by clean label and reformulations in order to make the food more palatable in the light of health recommendations, particularly by reducing the amount of sodium in foods in order to help prevent strokes, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Indeed, one of the biggest challenges for the food industry is to ensure that the food it produces is more healthy, while retaining the taste and mouthfeel that consumers love and also, vitally, the functionality of the ingredients. This can require total reformulation as it is not so simple to just remove or even reduce an ingredient that provides function as well as taste.

In the case of sodium, there is a good alternative: potassium. The functional properties of potassium chloride are nearly the same as for sodium chloride. However, consumers report taste issues with potassium chloride, which makes reformulation a difficult process.

With a modern facility commissioned just six years ago, K+S Kali offers customers state-of-the-art production facilities and more importantly, total control of regulatory and technical affairs. “This,” says Baart, “makes the unit interesting and unique.”

“The Unit Health Care & Nutrition has a team of dedicated staff who coordinate everything from product development to regulatory approval. This brings huge opportunities for dialogue with the market,” says Baart.

With its high-purity potassium and magnesium salts for the food, feed and pharmaceutical industries, K+S Kali still sees growth potential.

The Health Care and Nutrition division of K+S Kali brings in a premium price for its products, due to its high quality and high food grade status. This is especially noticeable when compared with the salts used for the non-food or other markets.

Organic growth seems the natural way forward for K+S Kali, which has KaliSel as its main brand on the food and beverage market. But Baart sees partnerships with other companies as an obvious area for growth

“We are always looking for synergies with others in the food business,” he says. “The market is moving fast towards reformulation, particularly in the area of sodium reduction, so this is an obvious area. We are talking to people who are not already making changes and tackling resistance due to taste issues,” Baart explains.

The taste, says Baart, can also depend on the ingredients of the final product. For example, used in a tomato-based product, there is no real taste implication as the tomato seems to absorb the taste. One food producer making a tomato-based produce, reports Baart, found that by reducing sodium and substituting with potassium, there was a distinctly peppery flavour to the food. When this was discovered, the development team could also reduce its pepper content. This demonstrates the need to reformulate the whole product, not just reduce or replace sodium.

Working with meat, however, presents more of a challenge, and that is why Baart recommends that the whole formula is explored as there are changes in ingredients and levels that can be made all the way through the process.

The business is not just about customers interested in sodium reduction, though. There are many customers who are looking to increase the potassium content of their foods. In general there is a potassium deficit in food intake and many food companies, particularly in the US, are marketing products containing more potassium as a ‘better for you’ product.

“Sodium reduction is a very delicate matter,” says Baart. “We know that the general consumer does not want a huge reduction in salt due to the taste implications. It transpires that consumers add more salt at the table to compensate for the shortfall. However, when sodium is reintroduced, research shows that consumers continue to add the salt at the table.”

“Food processors therefore follow a different strategy. They gradually reduced sodium in their products, which has gone largely unnoticed by the consumer. The Dutch Bakery Association has implemented a strategy to considerably reduce sodium over five years but this has gone unnoticed.”

“Another example,” says Baart, “is that of potato chips in the US. Many have reduced the sodium content year-on-year without promoting the fact and consumers seem not to have noticed.”

It seems that while consumers are keen to be healthy by consuming reduced fat and reduced sugar products (those that may impact their weight status), they are not so keen to compromise on taste for other health reasons, like a reduction in hypertension.

Where Baart sees a big increase in the commitment to reduce sodium and look at reformulations has been with those big food manufacturers that have made a social commitment to produce more healthy foods. Many big companies now publish sustainability reports with pledges to improve the nutritional content of their foods and while they rarely stipulate which foods they are going to reformulate or exactly how, they are the ones that have shown the biggest growth in potassium chloride demand.

“Many big food processors have been working for years to reformulate and we have seen distinct growth in potassium chloride demand,” says Baart.

As well as noticing a change in the way Big Food is reformulating, Baart sees huge regional variations with different health messages and public health campaigns that directly relate to different strategies. In Germany, for example, he says that there is virtually no market for reduced sodium products and only a modest commitment to improve the nutrition of food in this way. Noticeably, he says, there is a move for change in Southern Europe. The UK, US, the Netherlands and also France are the markets that show most commitment to change, says Baart.

“The Chinese market is different again,” says Baart. “There is not so much processed food there yet, but what we are seeing a lot of is diet salt, so salt with a mix of minerals like sodium and potassium. This was traditionally the case in the US as well.” 

So, as Baart explains, food reformulation to change the salt composition can mean so many different methods that it is a step-by-step process. In some cases, as with the Dutch Bakery Association experience, just cutting out sodium is sufficient, although when too much is removed, there will be functional issues. Processors can also substitute some of the sodium for potassium, or replace it altogether, taking taste and functional properties into account. An open mind to total product reformulation is the key, says Baart.

By Kelly Worgan