Healthy indulgence: CP Kelco targets texture and stability with plant-based alternative solutions
08 Jan 2024 | CP Kelco
Maria Stallknecht showcased CP Kelco’s prototypes highlighting vegan trends including, plant-based cold cut meats, egg alternatives, and a matcha latte featuring gellan gum for suspension and stability. High protein prototypes were also displayed with innovations featuring a new pectin ingredient and gummies packed with vitamin C and a citrus fiber soft serve ice cream.
This is Gaya Selby for food ingredients first with Maria at CP Calco booth.
Hi, how are you doing?
I'm doing.
It's a great show so far.
We have a busy day and we're really looking forward to showing all our prototypes.
OK, great.
You've got some prototypes here, so talk us through some of your concepts.
Yeah, this year we're showcasing a lot of.
Different concepts where we can really illustrate the features that our products come with, so we divide it into different sessions in the morning with breakfast where we have our vegan egg which you can substitute your egg to and then you can eat it as you would normally eat your normal square egg.
Here we feature our Calcogel Glanga to the texture you need and also the stability into the product.
The other things we have which also really focus on the vegan trend is matcha latte, which here is just your green drink here, and here you really need to have stability into your drink where we use again our yella gum this time another type for suspension and stability, and we build on the trend of making something new with matcha latte, which is not something you see every day.
The last we have or the second to last on the vegan trend is a cold cuts, plant-based meat.
Vegan is still a big trend even though we do see that the environment around us is changing.
Vegan is still interesting, and here we developed a new carrageenan to tap into this so we can get the.
You want into your vegan meat or meat-like product that you would like to have.
In this case, yolk like mozzarella, where you would need to be able to roll it, cut it, and really be able to chew it to put it into a sandwich, for example.
The last part of the vegan is our high protein, plant protein yogurt.
Where we are really focusing on having high protein, which is the second trend we also see, with 8% of protein using oats and pea in this case, and often when you move to that high level of protein, you are lacking the creamy mouthfeel and you can also lack some stability.
So here we use our genopectin to really create that creaminess.
Looking into this from a broader perspective, we also look a lot into health, and here we have a showcasing, let me see if I can lift it up, two gummies where you can bring either calcium or vitamin C using a genopectin for the texture and the stability of the gummy.
We do see that health is interesting and big for consumers as as also indulgence, so we try to combine it and then when we let fully go, we have our citrus fiber ice cream at the end where we use trava citrus fiber as the only stabilizer and thickener in this case.
So an ice cream here serves as a soft.
Serve ice cream and then we also developed a chocolate sauce using only trava citrus fiber on the top, so that is the pure indulgence at the indulgence is a trend and healthy indulgence.
Consumers are looking for kind of permissible guilt-free indulgence.
Is that something that you are deliberately targeting?
It is definitely.
We know the environment around us is stressful every day.
People are running around and also all the conflicts around the world is making people stressful as.
So if they can if they can turn to their food and really have that relief, you can say, or indulge and just let go, that's a big part of that as.
If they can do it in a healthy way at the same time, that's really great, and we do know they look a lot into.
And they also, even though prices are here and people are looking to save money, they still look out for the environment as.
So that's also a feature we really look.
That was my next question about the green credentials of these types of a big trend, and I can also mention that our Nutrava citrus fiber has actually recently been certified as upcycled, so that.
Also built into the sustainability trend.
It's certified in the US and it's one of it's the only social fiber on the market where we can which is as such certified, so we're really proud to have that part of our portfolio.
So what sort of challenges do these solutions help manufacturers and brands overcome?
Often when you do, for example, when you do the bacon, you often lose or miss the texture or the stability over time, and that's where we can help you.
We are really experts and we love doing textures and different mouth feels, so that's really what we bring to these solutions.
At the other side as , we can also help substitute other ingredients so that can be for cleaning of a label or it could also be when you have an ingredient that has a lot of trouble in getting, so really supply chain disruptions that we saw a lot the last years that can also be part of what we can help with with our ingredients.
I see, and these are obviously all plant-based alternative solutions and plant-based space has been evolving for many years.
What do you think is coming next for that?
It's tough to say.
I think we'll see it still evolving slowly, and we do see that the crisis has put a little bit of a slowdown to this, so slowly it will evolve, but it will be small niches that we see coming.
We do also see a big wish and a call for vegan mozzarella because that's still an area which doesn't really have the solution yet.
It is something we are looking into as , and we are looking into having a new product with that coming up with a better solution to get you that meltability you're looking for, the threadability as , and also a better what do you call that stretch stretch.
OK, all right, good stuff.
And then just finally, as we're heading into the new year and beyond.
What might we be seeing from the company?
I think we still see I had one here on the vegan high protein yogurt.
I think we are seeing more as into dairy as as high protein, so that's definitely something we will also see something on hybrids because as plant-bas might be slowing down, people are trying to find out do I need dairy or do I switch back, or do I go the other way, so hybrid.
Definitely be something coming and then it's kind of a challenge for both worlds.
So hopefully we can help developers use the best from dairy and use our expertise from the plant-based world.
So that's definitely something in the new year we will definitely still see a focus on affordability.
It is a big thing and it's something we look out for every time when we look into developments.
We do have that in mind when we do develop all the way from.
Making sure you can maintain getting your ingredients, you can produce it and and it doesn't cost you more.
So that's definitely a trend that will stay.
OK, Maria, thanks very much.
Thank you.
