TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions help manufacturers deliver superior taste experience in beverages

New to the world technology improves taste by better balancing sweetness, texture and flavor

TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions uses Cargill’s patent-pending technology, application capabilities and ingredients to enable beverage manufacturers to deliver better tasting, reduced calorie products to consumers by optimizing the balance of texture, sweetness and flavor. 

Consumers are seeking reduced calorie products to manage their weight.   According to Business Insights, the diet food and beverages market in the United States and Europe is now a $116.5 billion industry and growing. However, taste remains the overriding factor in consumer preference, even when it comes to diet products.

“Cargill’s approach to consumer ‘taste experience’ is unique. Based on new research, Cargill has built a deeper understanding of three key factors that affect the taste experience of beverages: sweetness, flavor and mouthfeel,” said Andy Del-Rosal, team leader of Cargill’s beverage applications scientists. “These factors must be examined in relation to each other because any time one is modified, it affects the way the others are perceived. Today, only Cargill has the capabilities to look at all three factors from a holistic perspective by uniting our expertise in sweeteners, flavors and texturizers to optimize the taste experience.” 

Reducing time and costs

A key element of TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions is an innovation in multi-sensory product development that enables the delivery of superior mouthfeel in beverages with a precision previously unknown in the industry. This new approach allows accelerated product development cycles by leveraging tribology (the science and technology of interacting surfaces in relative motion) to more accurately mimic and measure what goes on inside the mouth when a beverage is consumed. 

Cargill is a pioneer in the use of tribology in the food and beverage industry, and through its use can predict and shape mouthfeel with an accuracy previously unknown in the industry.

External validations, performed using sensory and consumer testing at North Carolina State University’s Sensory Science Center, confirmed the connection between key mouthfeel sensations and drivers of consumer liking as delivered by Cargill’s measurement and ingredient technology.

Helping drive top and bottom line growth

TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions combine this “prediction” capability with Cargill’s ingredient expertise and beverage formulation capabilities to bring proprietary solutions to beverage manufacturers.

 When producing calorie-reduced beverages, manufacturers typically lower the sugar content of their product, a move which affects the sweetness of the beverage and impacts mouthfeel – and thus the total taste experience. To compensate for the reduction of sweetness, zero- or mid-calorie sweeteners are added and often combined with taste masking and enhancing flavors. Although this combination effectively addresses the loss of sweetness, the beverage is still likely to deliver a ‘thinner’ mouthfeel and a different taste profile.

To remedy this challenge, Cargill utilizes its expertise in texturizers, sweeteners and flavors to balance taste and mouthfeel with unmatched precision, helping customers save time and reduce costs. TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions helps speed product development through the utilization of its unique prediction capabilities and new texturizing components. The pre-screened texturizing blends, commercialized as Trilisse™ blends, optimize mouthfeel in reduced calorie beverages based on specific applications. These proprietary texturizing blends also may allow beverage makers to use less sweeteners or other ingredients to achieve the same mouthfeel.

Additional elements of TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions can include Cargill's stevia-based, zero-calorie sweetener Truvia® rebiana*, and taste enhancing and masking flavors.

 “With TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions, Cargill not only provides the ingredients to achieve the desired sweetness and enhanced mouthfeel, but the science and expertise to achieve the optimal balance,” said Donna Burns, Cargill beverage category marketing.  “This new offering is the culmination of years of scientific research to help our customers develop reduced-calorie beverages that deliver great taste. Cargill has six patents filed on TasteWise™ reduced calorie solutions, and is now working to extend its capabilities into food products including dressings, sauces and soups.

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