IFT First 2024 live: Roquette elevates beverage taste and texture with fava bean and pea protein ingredients
16 Jul 2024 | Roquette
Roquette’s Alexandre de Souza Carvalho talks to us live from IFT about the company’s new coconut milk beverage with fava protein which delivers great taste. The company also offers other pea protein solutions and taps into trends such as label-friendly innovation with the right texture. He also highlights the significance of protein enrichment, nutrition and digestive health-related solutions like prebiotics.
Food and Greens first reported from IFT 1st 2024 in Chicago.
We're here at the Roquette booth with Alexandra de Sousa Carvalho, who is global head of marketing.
Welcome to you.
All right, so what are you highlighting today on the show?
All right, first of all, pleasure to meet you, Joshua, and yeah, so what are we showcasing?
So we have some really nice and exciting new launches.
One is the new Fava Protein.
So you know, Rocket is trying to Really cope and navigate all this big trend of plant-based food by becoming a multi-protein company.
So, as you know, we have a very consolidated business in P.
Fava is the new, addition to our portfolio.
So we are showcasing a new beverage, coconut milk with, fava protein that delivers great taste, great experience for the consumer.
Then we have some other new ones like Creamy pea protein that delivers a great taste.
You know that consumers are looking for plant-based, but if you don't have the right taste and texture, it's very hard because you're not delivering on consumer expectations.
So we are really trying hard and hard to really, really develop products that deliver great texture, great taste.
That's why the new creamy pea protein.
These are some of the examples that we are showcasing here.
What are the main consumer trends you're looking to tap into with these solutions?
So we are looking for, we are basically looking at different trends.
There is no doubt that one big space that we are addressing is sugar management.
It means sugar reduction.
How do you modulate?
How do you really create products that deliver the right level of calories, so by reducing sugar.
So that's one area.
The other one is really related to.
Texture of products.
So by having more clean label solutions like label friendly texture solutions that deliver this experience that we are mentioning around consumer taste and texture.
The other area that is very important is protein, right, which is really all the movement that we are seeing on plant-based delivering protein enrichment for nutrition and all that.
And ultimately another trend that we are seeing.
More and more are getting traction is related to digestive health.
Like prebiotic solutions.
Like we have Nutrios, which is a fiber, a soluble fiber solution that you can use for digestive health, delivering this benefit of, for consumers, but also, which is a great opportunity to use fibers for reducing sugar as because it delivers also good mouth feeling.
Beverages and helps to reduce adding sugar in different formulations.
So these are the big trends that we are really driving lately and showcasing.
And how do you see the plant-based space evolving over the coming years?
What directions might it take?
Thanks, Joshua.
I think it's a great question.
You know there has been a lot of buzz around plant-based diets like meat analogs and all that.
Based beverages, they continue to grow and you know that there was a kind of a slowdown, but this transition is happening.
A lot of people are talking about the different growth, trends in this category, but what is happening is that it is still one of the most dynamic categories.
Consumers, they will transition from animal protein driven by not only sustainability, but also animal welfare and other benefits and really related.
To the benefit of health, which is the big wave that is coming now, that plant-based diet adoption is also related to health habits that we are seeing more and more being absorbed.
We believe it's continued to grow, probably not as fast as everybody expected, but it's continued to be one of the most dynamic categories growing so far in the food space.
You mentioned sustainability.
What are you doing as a company to Advance in this important area.
So Joshua, in the, in the case of sustainability, Rocket has a commitment since many years, right?
We are a 90 year old company, since the beginning because we depend on nature, because we transform corn into great products for consumers.
We transform beat into great products.
So we depend on those crops.
So what we are doing is working on regenerative agriculture, for example.
To keep sustainable for our farmers, that's one space.
The other space we are working is to create products that really deliver a lower carbon footprint.
So that's becoming a prerequisite for any new product.
And you know we have a commitment of delivering solutions for new energy sources like biomass, like for example, using geothermal energy and all.
We have a horizon until 2030 to invest €350 million into sustainability.
So that's the commitment of the Rocket Group to really drive, and we know it's never enough.
We need to continue to invest because, as I like to say, sustainability is not the way, it's the only way.
Thanks for your time.
Enjoy the rest of the show.
Thank you so much.
