Salty French Fry Satisfaction with Lower Sodium

Have you found yourself heading towards a restaurant not because you are craving an entrée but because you are craving their fries?  There is financial power in delicious fries.  Fries are ranked as the 2nd-most-craved food among consumers who said cravings, at least occasionally, drive their restaurant visits.¹ The average American eats 30 lbs. of french fries per year. ² Golden crispy fries require a certain amount of salt to accent the flavor. It turns out that there is a way to achieve iconic fry taste with 30% less sodium, while applying 75% less salt.

Salt used on french fries is often an overlooked source of food waste. A huge amount of salt falls to the tray below the fries because a good portion of the salt just doesn’t adhere to the fry’s surface. It turns out that these higher falloff rates, usually associated with granulated table salt, lead to a potential higher product waste, and therefore cost. 

An additional pressure on food producers is coming from US food regulatory groups and non-governmental organizations, all in the interest of public health. In response to rising rates of obesity and chronic diseases, they have implemented and proposed changes to food and nutrition policies and programs. This has increased pressure on food producers to reformulate their products in various ways, often including sodium reduction.  But reducing salt is not always easy – especially when taste plays such a key role.

Cargill's Alberger® Fine Flake Salt is made with a proprietary process that creates a unique crystal structure and outperforms standard table salt on French fries. Think of table salt as a smooth, cubic, dice-like shape; whereas Alberger® Fine Flake Salt has a nonuniform appearance with lots of little crevices and bumps.  This roughness helps it stick better to the surface of foods, where table salt is more likely to bounce off of foods, thereby creating more waste.  If you have ever shaken table salt on fries, you can picture the particles bouncing off the fries and falling to the bottom of the container.

This roughness not only helps the salt adhere to surfaces but it also dissolves faster giving french fries a more salty impression when consumed.  Cargill's Alberger® Fine Flake Salt delivers equivalent salty taste at lower sodium level versus table salt, allowing flavor parity with 75% less applied product. This product allows customers to experience the same flavor with 30% lower sodium. ³

The true test of success is in the taste. Consumer sensory testing demonstrated that Cargill's Alberger® Fine Flake Salt delivers the same flavor as table salt – using 75% less product and with 30% reduction in sodium. ³ Cargill has provided food producers with a few more reasons to invest their energies in their french fry offerings.

 

 
 

1. http://www.qsrmagazine.com/menu-innovations/these-spuds-aren-t-duds
2. The Daily Meal: http://www.thedailymeal.com/10-things-you-didn-t-know-about-french-fries-slideshow?slide=3
3. Reduction based on Cargill proprietary research (p-value=0.17).  The french fries used were of the thick cut, unbrined, uncoated variety with ~26mg/100gm before cooking or application of Alberger® Fine Flake Salt. Sodium reduction results will vary based on sodium content of fry before being salted.