Simplifying Salt in Food Manufacturing Through Innovation Expertise
As one of the largest salt suppliers in the United States, Cargill provides the expertise, tools, and resources to develop the right salt formulas for varying applications, so that food processors don’t have to worry about their salt.
For food manufacturers, salt may seem like a low priority ingredient to spend time and resources testing in a wide breadth of food applications. In reality, salt adds much more to food than just flavor. Not only does salt serve an important sensory role in most processed foods, but it also can play a vital functional role, affecting texture, shelf-life, water-holding capacity, and more. (1) That’s why as one of the largest salt suppliers in the United States, Cargill provides the expertise, tools, and resources to find the right salt formulas for varying applications, so that food processors don’t have to worry about their salt.
Because Cargill is primarily a food company, we have a broad scope of knowledge across the food industry. This deep knowledge translates into solutions for our customers through Cargill Salt’s full technical support team, including regulatory, food safety, quality and regulatory (FSQR) , and food science experts. At a time when sodium reduction in processed foods is top-of-mind for consumers, this type of support is vital in order to create the right product formulations from a sensory and nutritional standpoint. Our technical support team also has formulation and application experience in food and feed safety, FDA labeling guidelines, GMO standards, and ingredient development and processing.
The Cargill Food Innovation Center, one of the company’s largest food research hubs located near Minneapolis, MN, is just one of 16 global Cargill Innovation Centers. It’s through these centers that our technical support team can help customers find holistic solutions that optimize costs, get to market faster, and innovate products. The state-of-the-art facilities include a culinary center, frying applications lab, sensory testing lab, ingredient development department, snacks and cereal pilot plants, and more. Our full service kitchen was also designed specifically as a space for customer collaboration, where we host customer innovation events, product showings, training seminars, and facilitate rapid product prototyping.
Macy Sherwin, Technical Services Specialist based at the Cargill Food Innovation Center near Minneapolis, is one of many food scientists working directly with a handful of food processing customers. In reference to her team’s day-to-day goals at the lab, Sherwin stated, “The Technical Services Team works with subject matter experts within Cargill to help our customers choose the correct salt for their application. We utilize the capabilities in our innovation centers to help our customers achieve their sodium goals, whether that may be finding a salt with improved solubility or reducing overall sodium levels in a product.” Her team has worked on a variety of projects that have led to customer successes with sodium. In one case, a large snack manufacturer leveraged support from the Technical Services Team to find a salt that would adhere better to their product, resulting in less ingredient waste, improved visual appeal, and heightened sensory benefits. In another instance, Sherwin worked on a case where a customer required greater sodium reduction in their convenience products while maintaining an ingredient label that consumers could easily read and understand. In every case, when food processing customers collaborate with our technical services team, they will be able to find successful, individualized solutions for their products.
Cargill Salt continues to invest in our people and our facilities as the need for sodium solutions grows. For more information on our full range of salt ingredients or our expert support, visit www.cargill.com/food-beverage/na/food-salt, or call 1-888-385-SALT (7258).