From the Cold Corner Podcast
Formulating for Food Safety
Food ingredients and additives are often tasked with more than just influencing taste or mouthfeel – they are increasingly a part of food safety.
In RTE and refrigerated foods, where there is a focus on preventing Listeria monocytogenes, processors and manufacturers are also looking for clean labels ways to extending shelf life.
“Our shelf life only takes us as far as our food safety does," said Garrett McCoy, senior manager, research, development and applications at Corbion. “When these conventional antimicrobial products were first developed, we never thought that there would be a push to remove potassium lactate from a finished product label, but that's the scenario we've been in for the last 10 years or so with the push for clean label and natural ingredients. We went from a conventional lactate diacetate-based solution to now we have clean label, cultured sugar, cultured dextrose, buffered vinegars and other ways that we can look at more natural processes and ingredients while still maintaining food safety and protecting shelf life."
During the development process, cold foods companies can use predictive modeling as a resource to validate food safety and product quality attributes.
“It integrates different key variables like pH, water activity, salt content and storage conditions like storage temperature and can help you predict the growth of Listeria over time, which is basically expressed in number of days of shelf life," said Tushar Verma, senior scientist and team lead, food microbiology at Corbion. “And these predictive models can really help you screen preservatives quickly and shorten that R&D time. It reduces trial and error and then you have more of a targeted, science-based approach with these predictive models."
Formulating for Food Safety
Food ingredients and additives are often tasked with more than just influencing taste or mouthfeel – they are increasingly a part of food safety. Garrett McCoy, senior manager, research, development & applications at Corbion, and Tushar Verma, senior scientist and team lead, food microbiology at Corbion, join From the Cold Corner to talk food safety in the cold case.
When food manufacturers are reformulating a product, McCoy encourages them to engage ingredient partners as early as possible.
“It makes the development cycle easier because then we know what the nutritional targets are," he said. “If we have sodium-based components or if we have potassium components, are we looking at reducing sodium overall in the formula? And it also helps a lot from a flavor management perspective. With the removal of artificial colors, it's not always just a simple removal and replaced with a different ingredient. If we wait until the end of the product development process and then we say, ‘Oh, by the way, we need 120 days of Listeria control on this prepared entree,’ now we may be introducing new ingredients."
While ingredient trends and nuances of formulations may change, one thing won’t.
“We're still always going to put a focus and emphasis on food safety. Preservation is not one-size-fits-all, so we need to make sure as an ingredient manufacturer that every product that we're developing, all our innovation, is driven by needs of the market. What can we do to adapt to shifting needs and shifting applications in the industry?" Garrett said.
Verma agreed, saying food safety must be a design input.
“It always starts from the manufacturer. We as a as a natural preservative company, we can provide solutions, but it has to start from where your food is manufactured like things like GMPs (Good Manufacturing Practices)," Verma said. “The cleaner the product goes into the distribution, I would say the more value you get from your shelf-life technology."
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