Meurens Natural webinar preview: Unlocking cereal functionality for cleaner-label beverages

Beverage manufacturers are increasingly aiming to streamline ingredient lists to meet clean label demands. However, maintaining the texture, stability, and taste consumers expect is putting greater pressure on formulation expertise, according to Meurens Natural.

The cereal ingredients company’s upcoming webinar, “Let’s reveal the grain potential: Innovate,” will explore where beverage formulation is heading and what clean label means from a technical standpoint. Experts will also discuss how cereal-derived natural solutions can offer functional performance while responding to real production bottlenecks.

Ahead of the session, Food Ingredients First talks to one of the webinar’s speakers, Simon Brandt, NPD manager at the company, about why clean label reformulation involves more than simply removing additives and how cereal technology can help formulators extract more functionality from fewer ingredients.

You can register for free for the webinar here, which will be broadcast on October 29, 2026, at 15:00 CET.

Dairy mimicry to simpler formulations

Brandt says that while oat beverage innovation traditionally focused on recreating dairy’s sensory and functional characteristics, consumer expectations are now shifting.

“A few years ago, innovation in oat drinks was mainly focused on matching dairy performance through texture, foaming, and creaminess. Today, consumers still expect excellent functionality, but they increasingly look for shorter ingredient lists, recognizable ingredients, and a more natural product story.”

Shorter ingredient lists and recognizable components are becoming more important to consumers choosing plant-based beverages.As a result, formulation strategies are evolving from adding functionalities to “extracting more functionality from fewer ingredients.”

“The challenge is no longer simply achieving stability, whitening power, foaming, or mouthfeel. The challenge is delivering these functionalities while reducing formulation complexity,” Brandt emphasizes.

According to the company, cereals can play a larger role in this shift.

“This trend is driving renewed interest in cereal-derived ingredients capable of contributing multiple functionalities simultaneously, such as sweetness, texture, emulsification, and even nutritional value.”

Rethinking clean label and protein positioning

While clean label is often discussed as a consumer trend, Meurens Natural’s webinar will focus on its technical implications.

Protein enrichment in oat drinks is one example of how cleaner-label targets can intersect with formulation complexity.

“A good example is protein positioning in oat drinks,” Brandt notes.

“Traditionally, formulators seeking a ‘source of protein’ claim often need to introduce additional protein ingredients, such as pea or other plant proteins. While effective, this approach may increase formulation complexity and move the product away from its original oat-based ingredient story.”

“Our development work started with a simple question — could an oat syrup contribute not only sweetness, mouthfeel, and stability, but also protein content?”

Barista applications highlight the need for oat drinks to combine foam quality, texture, and processing stability.That work led to the development of Natu Oat 35 HP, Meurens Natural’s protein-enriched oat syrup developed for oat drink applications. The objective was not simply to increase protein levels, but to “do so while maintaining a few-ingredient formulation philosophy,” he adds.

“The result is an ingredient that can contribute to protein claims while remaining fully oat-based, opening new opportunities for clean label and simplified formulations.”

Fewer ingredients, more function

Meurens Natural’s webinar will also shed light on what happens when cleaner-label targets meet real production requirements.

For R&D teams and formulators, the focus is on achieving functional performance under practical manufacturing conditions rather than treating clean label as a purely marketing-led objective, according to the company.

They must also look beyond ingredient removal and consider how cereal-derived solutions can contribute several functions at once.

“The next generation of oat drinks will be defined by their ability to deliver more with fewer ingredients,” Brandt concludes.