Pretzels & co: GoodMills Innovation eyes 50 percent less salt for savory snacks

13 Mar 2018 --- This week is Salt Awareness Week (March 12-18) and GoodMills Innovation is enabling salt reduction in pretzel décor without the consumer noticing any visible difference. When it comes to pretzels or salt sticks, the visual contrast between a dark crust and a rich salt décor is a mark of quality for most consumers and according to GoodMills Innovation, their new Slow Milling Pretzel Salt SG has the answer.

While salt reduction in baked goods is currently an important topic, salt used for decorative purposes is a tricky issue. With pretzels, salt sticks and similar products, consumers view a lavish salt topping as proof of quality, even if they often strip it off before consumption to avoid an overwhelmingly salty taste. Slow Milling Pretzel Salt Light SG allows bakers to achieve this rich decorative effect with up to 75 percent less salt in the décor and 50 percent less in the product as a whole. Baked goods take on a mild salty taste while maintaining the typical crispness and the indulgent mouthfeel of conventional pretzel salt.

Michael Gusko, Managing Director GoodMills Innovation spoke with FoodIngredientsFirst: “The negative effects of exceeding salt intake have been on the public radar for years and the industry continues to create solutions for effective salt reduction. However, we’re still in the early stages. It is time for the industry to focus even more on this topic, particularly since some European countries have already set restrictions on the amount of salt allowed in foods.”

The UK’s comprehensive salt campaign, for instance, has boosted consumer awareness about the coronary risks associated with salt and succeeded in ensuring that in some sectors, the salt content of foods has declined by more than 40 percent. Germany too is also aiming to reduce the salt content of food (particularly in ready-to-eat meals) by the middle of 2018, and other countries are following these examples.

“Besides all types of pretzel pastries, Slow Milling Pretzel Salt Light SG is ideal for all savory snacks where salt is used as a “dry” topping or décor, such as salt sticks. In bakery, it is also ideal for creating bread specialties – from Italian focaccia with Mediterranean herbs and salt décor via savory snacks from puff pastry to typical German salt bread varieties. Due to the high stability of Slow Milling Pretzel Salt Light SG, it could even be used on frozen foods,” explains Gusko.

“The new pretzel salt convinces with perfect stability in frozen applications. While common decor salt reacts to moisture coming from thawing or even temperature differences during transport and storing, Slow Milling Pretzel Salt Light SG keeps its sensory properties – i.e., the crunchy bite and the visual appearance of the salt granulate and has no impact on the look of the finished product. As such, the new pretzel salt is ideal even for extended frosting periods,” he notes.

Salt reduction with optimal appearance and efficiency

The new pretzel salt scores particularly high when used on frozen bake-off products. With regular salt, the crystals would dissolve during the defrosting process and produce unsightly burn marks. To avoid this, frozen products are usually delivered without salt décor, which subsequently has to be sprinkled on by hand before baking. For bakeries with in-store ovens, this is especially time-consuming.

With Slow Milling Pretzel Salt Light SG, however, the single salt grains are blended with rice flour to reduce the overall salt content of the product and then coated with a natural substance for stability. Since the GoodMills Innovation pretzel salt is not water-soluble, it remains stable, even when defrosted and baked.

Besides its technological and taste advantages, Slow Milling Pretzel Salt Light SG also brings nutritional benefits. The German Society for Nutrition (DGE), for instance, recommends a maximum daily intake of 2.4g of salt. However, the actual consumption of salt in Germany is about 9g per day, of which 24 percent comes from bread. This makes baked goods the largest source of daily salt consumption.

By Elizabeth Green