New opportunities for smoke flavors
24 May 2019 | Red Arrow
Red Arrow is identifying new opportunities for smoked flavors in the industry. “Consumers want more authentic flavors and more authentic tastes that relate to what they are doing in their backyard, the barbecuing concepts. A lot of our flavors and our innovation are focused around that authenticity, that label-friendly, that clean-label focus,” Mark Crass, General Manager/ Vice President at Red Arrow Products, tells FoodIngredientsFirst at IFFA 2019 in Frankfurt (May 4-9).
And Mark, what are, what are some of the trends that are happening when it comes to smoke flavors?
Where, where do you see new application opportunities?
What's kind of, are you developing right now?
Sure, so some of the big developments we see, of course, are focused around traditional smoke conversions with the onset of and the continued popularity trends toward barbecuing.
Not only US based, but from a global perspective, consumers want more authentic flavors, more authentic tastes when it relates to what they're actually doing in the backyard, that barbecuing concepts.
And a lot of our flavors and a lot of our innovation is focused around again that authenticity, that label friendly, that clean label focus, and why is it so clean label?
Maybe you can kind of briefly explain the process behind it.
Sure, clean label, you know, as, as, as we look in the industry as a whole, consumer.
Just want that authentic flavor profile without a whole lot of different additives, without any types of synthetic types of flavors or artificial flavors that that would be added to emulate actually naturally occurring processes.
And so that's one of the things we focus on very heavily is.
Creating those processes internally within our operation and then capturing those flavors from those processes that again emulate what you would be doing in your backyard cooking.
And in summary, what, what is the process then?
We're, we're collecting smoked flavors.
We're collecting grilled flavors that again, when, for example, if you take a look at a grill flavor, it's a very complex process.
Depending upon what you're using as a heat source, charcoal, gas, a flat iron grill, the protein that you're using, the lipids that drip down onto the heat source, pyrolyze and then are reabsorbed into the meat.
Are you using charcoal?
Are you using gas?
All those things come along into a flavor profile that again are transferred onto the meat and give that.
Experience that consumers crave.
Are you innovating at Red Arrow?
Are there signs of new things that can be done when it comes to this field of flavors?
Oh, most certainly we're innovating all the time, and a perfect example of that is working with Cary Foods with plant fare, a vegetarian type of protein where we're taking some of our flavors and putting it into Some of the plant flair where we can incorporate it into a sausage, for example, where we have a 50/50 blend of plant protein and meat protein and really bringing about that meat experience that again, consumers find craveable, yet from a health standpoint, address not only your, your, your Gen Xers, but even those baby boomers that Again, our concern from that health perspective.
From a technical standpoint then, is there really a difference when it comes to these vegetarian items and classic meat when it comes to applying smoke flavors?
When it comes to applying smoke flavors, not too much because again you're looking at the end product as being something that consumers find very attractive.
Smoke is an incredibly appealing on trend.
Flavor profile again, that consumers find when you mentioned smoke, consumers find a certain amount of that comfort, OK, because smokes have been around and smoking of food has been around for hundreds of years, OK.
First initially as a preservative, now more so from a flavor creation standpoint.
So there's a level of comfort done.
And viewed by consumers when you look at it from that perspective, pretty much the same ingredients will be used for a vegetarian item as for that's correct.
Same same smokes you would use the same smokes in a vegetarian or a flexitarian item that you would use on a meat item.
Mark, thank you very much.
OK.
