Inulin, FOS and GOS assessed in Australia, NZ

Regulations concerning the addition of inulin, fructo oligosaccharides (FOS) and galacto oligosaccharides (GOS) to foods, both as a nutritive substance and as a sweetener, are being considered in Australia and New Zealand.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) will be calling for comment on its proposal and application on these ingredients to provide clarity for industry, enforcement agencies and other key stakeholders. In July, the agency advised parents to stop using Australian Nutricia's Karicare Gold Plus range of formulas that contained FOS because of concerns on the process of how this ingredient is classified. The ingredient is also used as a prebiotic and sweetener in non-infant foods, such as diet bars, but the infant formulas were of particular concern as they make up 100 per cent of a baby's diet.

Inulin, FOS and GOS are non-digestible carbohydrates that reach the colon intact and are hydrolysed by specific positive members of the colon microflora. They act as prebiotics and have been used in infant formula to soften the stools of formula-fed babies. Many oligosaccharides are actually found naturally in breast milk. As well as considering the addition of FOS and GOS to all foods, the proposal focuses on special purpose foods, including infant formula products, foods for infants and formulated supplementary foods for young children.

There is some interest in marketing further infant and toddle products with added FOS and GOS. At the moment, there is confusion over whether pre-market approval is required for use in these types of foods because they are defined as nutritive substances by the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. The FSANZ has commenced work on the paid application (A609), which seeks to amend the Code to permit the addition of GOS and long chain inulin to infant formula products and foods for infants in a ratio of 9:1 and at a maximum level of 0.8g/100 ml and 0.8/100g respectively.

The agency is also completing a risk assessment and seeking and external peer review, and will release a draft assessment report for public comment at the end of November. FOS was approved in the European Union seven years ago for addition in restricted amounts to infant formula (for babies up to six months) and follow-on formula (for babies between six and 12 months). The US considers it as generally recognised as safe.

Modern recommendations for inulin and oligofructose intake are between five and eight grams per day.

Consumers look to heal through functional foods

US consumers are increasingly consuming functional products with the intention of preventing or treating disease, the Natural Marketing Institute's (NMI) Steve French told SupplySide West attendees last week.

There has been an increased tendency for consumers to use functional food and beverage in hopes of preventing disease, according to French - executive vice president and managing partner of NMI -, however he indicated the gap is closing between those consumers who also take them with the hope of actually treating disease. French delivered a presentation Wednesday in Las Vegas on new consumer research and trends.

While functional foods and dietary supplements by their very nature should not be marketed to treat disease, consumers may nonetheless take their own such health motivations into account when consuming these products. As for marketers investing in the concept of food and healing, French drew on the example of Coca-Cola's opening of the Coca-Cola Research Center for Chinese Medicine in Beijing at the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing.

"This collaboration will ultimately help us bring the insights and benefits of traditional Chinese medicine to consumers all over the world," Rhona Applebaum - vice president, chief scientific and regulatory officer of Coca-Cola - said at the time of the opening in October. "As the world's largest beverage company, we can add global reach and world-class marketing skills to help promote Chinese wisdom in preventive holistic health through new and innovative beverages."

Given that very large food and beverage companies such as Coca-Cola tend to follow promising trends rather than set them, the link between healing and food looks to become only further entrenched in the consumer mind. Willingness to consume functional foods and beverages - be it for the maintenance of health, or the prevention or treatment of disease - is widespread among the US population, according to NMI's surveys. Currently, two thirds of Americans surveyed consume functional or fortified products, said French, and this consumption spreads fairly evenly across all age groups.

"What is even more interesting is that, when you ask the entire US population,… it is as important to Gen X as to Gen Y," said French. "What this means as a marketer is lifetime value."

As such, French encourages functional food ingredients makers to convey to manufacturers the relevance of this trend as one that will stay with consumers throughout their lifetime. Furthermore, while marketers traditionally envision a boomer woman when they set about to create and market a product, they should not forget men, who French says increasingly form part of household consumption choices.

"Men are increasingly becoming part of the purchasing decisions," said French. "Think of men when you are developing your marketing strategy."

NMI valued the entire health and wellness industry in the US at $91bn in retail sales. While consumers appear to better understand the link between nutrients and health, some of them also appear to have less of an appetite for dietary supplements, pointing to the potential for functional food marketers to step in. The market researcher has identified that barriers to supplement use are on the rise. It reports that one in four consumers are overwhelmed with the nutritional characteristics of supplements and which products to take. Another 22 percent indicated to the researcher they are dissatisfied with the quantities of pills they have to take, and 19 percent have difficulty swallowing pills.

While probiotics and omega-3 are among the dominant trends revealed by NMI, it also shows consumers still do not understand why probiotics can be good for you. For instance, only nine percent of respondents could affirm a link between probiotics and digestive health, and only 6 percent understood an association between probiotics and immunity.

"That's a problem," said French. "There's lots of education that needs to be done in this area."

While Europe has been the bastion of probiotics, the nutraceutical concept has been a lot slower to develop in the US. Some have posited that the notion of 'friendly basteria' was not appetizing to consumers this side of the Atlantic. Danone has been a key player in getting the message out to North American consumers through its advertising campaigns. Since the US launch of its Activia probiotic yogurts in January 2006, sales have surpassed the $100mn mark in retail grocery sales.

Scientists develop prebiotic, low-fat sausages

Inulin, the prebiotic fibre associated with improved gut and bone health, can be used as a fat replacer in sausages to cut energy by over 20 percent without affecting the flavour profile, suggests new research from Germany.

Inulin is already extensively used as a fat and sugar replacer, but according to background information in the article, its use in sausages has only been the subject of very limited study.

"Consumer demands for low-fat products, the precautionary principle in the new EC law to achieve the demanded high level of health protection, and market competition are all driving forces for the meat industry to launch new products," wrote lead author Bernhard Nowak in the Journal of Food Science.

"Therefore, in addition to dealing with traditional meat production problems such as hygiene and quality, it is also necessary to consider preventive, prebiotic aspects."

The researchers, from the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, and Leibniz University Hannover, investigated the feasibility of incorporating between three and 12 per cent inulin as a fat replacer into bologna-type sausages in order to reduce the energy content by nine to 48 per cent.

"In our experiment, the added inulin was applied as a gel (inulin diluted with water 1:1), and added in gradually increasing amounts to replace some of the back fat in the bologna formula; thus fat reduction was achieved by really replacing fat and not by increasing the amount of muscle meat in the formula, as has been done in many other experiments," they explained.

Nowak and co-workers report that the highest inulin incorporation was associated with a 47.5 per cent reduction in energy, but at all levels of fat replacement negative physicochemical effects. These included a darker colour, increased hardness, and a reduction in 'fracturability'.

Subsequent re-formulation by the researchers to substitute citrate for the phosphate in the recipe led to significant reduction in these negative effects.

The best results, in terms of both physicochemical properties and sensory attributes, were obtained for sausage formulations containing sic per cent inulin as a fat replacer. Such sausages offered 22 per cent less energy than normal sausages.

The sensory attributes (texture, colour) were assessed by four trained tasters, and states to be comparable to the control sausages.

Furthermore, the inulin sausages were found to be microbiologically stable for 23 days of storage.

"It is possible to add up to six per cent inulin as a gel to bologna-type sausages with citrate in the formula and achieve a significant reduction of the energy content (22 per cent) without negatively affecting sensory quality," wrote Nowak.

The researchers do state that the production costs of the reduced fat sausages with the potentially prebiotic activity are higher than normal sausages.

"However, these new and beneficial aspects of innovative products must be properly communicated to the consumer in an easily comprehensible manner and then the higher production costs of almost one-third to a standard sausage will be paid by many people," they concluded.

Source: Journal of Food Science
Published on-line ahead of print, doi:
"Energy Content, Sensory Properties, and Microbiological Shelf Life of German Bologna-Type Sausages Produced with Citrate or Phosphate and with Inulin as Fat Replacer"
Authors: B. Nowak, T. von Mueffling, J. Grotheer, G. Klein, B.-M. Watkinson