Opportunities from Salt Replacement in Food Preparation 169.0

The scan-adapt-diffuse approach to technology acquisition.
Consumers’ desire for healthier food creates opportunities for the enterprising innovator.

A more sedentary lifestyle especially in the developed world and increasingly so in emerging markets makes a sodium-rich diet a high risk of cardiovascular disease.

The major source of sodium in our diet is salt so that it makes a lot of sense to reduce salt in our food.

Unfortunately, replacing salt is not easy because of its functions in food and its very low cost as ingredient.

Here, I used the technique discussed in a much earlier post 68, Scan-Adapt-and-Diffuse, to develop new combinations of existing technologies for specific applications in the Philippines

Disclosure: I used to work for a company, BSFil Technologies, that distributes DSM yeast extracts in the Philippines. The diagram of the food pyramid above comes from a DSM brochure.

Functions of Salt in Food. Salty is one of the five basic tastes together with sweet, sour, bitter and umami (delicious savoury). Adding saltiness is salt’s basic function as food ingredient.

Enhancement of flavors is a more important role of salt. For example, adding a pinch of salt improves the perception of sweetness. Saltiness heightens the other basic tastes as well that is why Filipinos like their unripe mango with salt or bagoong. The SAS balance – salt-acid (sour, vinegar)-sugar – is often one of the first goals in savoury food design.

The other traditional role of salt is in food preservation. Like sugar, it binds water away from the substrate thus delaying spoilage.

Design of Flavors in Food. Generally, there are four aspects to designing flavors in food as in the pyramid above.

1. Base notes provide the fundamental profile, say meaty.
2. Mid-notes are more specific, say roast or boiled beef.
3. Top notes are normally aromas that are the first to assault the senses and is picked up by the brain at the same time as taste.
4. Enhancers, in another role, tend to blur the borders between the three parts above and are used to create one sensation out of the disparate parts.

In the flavor pyramid pictured above, enhancers are represented by the blue circle connected all the components together.

Some enhancers impart a little taste like MSG with bouillon. Others, like nucleotides, are clean and highlight the natural taste of the underlying component ingredients.

Specifics of Salt Replacement. Unlike sugar, where the main difficulty is its multi-function, the main challenge for salt replacement or a low-salt, low-sodium product development is the cheapness of salt.

Again, like sugar, two ingredients are needed to make a replacement taste and function like the original.

There are at least four basic ways to achieve salt replacement.

First, in food manufacturing, the usual replacement of salt and its sodium is potassium chloride. While it has the saltiness, KCl also has a strong metallic aftertaste that needs to be masked. While it does replace the sodium, there is some issues with those consumers who may be sensitive to potassium.

Second, also in food manufacturing, enhancers like yeast extracts and nucleotides like DSM’s Maxarome range may be used to reduce KCL dose and to highlight the natural saltiness of the base ingredients.

Third, in food manufacturing and in culinary applications, the addition of table sale or sodium chloride may be reduced by partial replacement with ingredients like HVPs, soy sauce or fish sauce that actually have salt created during its fermentation. In this case, the claim can only be “No Table Salt Added.”

Finally, in culinary applications, salt can be replaced by herb seasonings that highlight other sensations like heat and flavors to improve palatability without necessarily the use of salty flavor.

There are many recipes on the Internet for herb seasonings as salt replacers.

The skilled food developer or chef can, of course, use any combination of the four ways above.

Science and Art. From above, designing tasty food at target cost-price is both a science and art.

My own experience the past few years with developing low-salt or low-sodium recipes is that while good food can be developed, the target cost-price versus the original salt-based recipe is never attained.

Thus, one alternative with a premium price position. The clever food designer or chef, therefore, will position his new product on health and set a price premium accordingly.

Scan-adapt-diffuse Mode of Technology Acquisition. There will always be consumers out there who will search out food for health. Thus, the opportunity indeed lies in developing low-salt and low-sodium products with some creativity and the sweat from scan-adapt-diffuse and trial-and-error experiments.

In the scan-adapt-diffuse mode of technology acquisition, the innovator does not start from basic science research but scans the world for technology that works.

Adaptive research follows that, in the case of salt replacement, involves testing the scanned technology, i.e. KCL and its adjuncts, to test for palatability and acceptance.

With successful adaptation, diffusion of technology, say by commercialization or by training, follows.

Innovation in Food Design and Change Management in Emerging Markets. For the majority of consumers in emerging markets who are at the bottom of the pyramid, the final costs of new food products are always a big constraint.

A clever combination of the four methods above with the appropriate sourcing strategy will also yield tasty products at the least cost.

Note: I have also posted about the opportunities from scan-adapt-diffuse of sugar replacement in Post 69 of SYNTHESiST.

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