Tomato serum: The natural key to sodium reduction?
LycoRed has been selling the serum from its lycopene-rich tomatoes as a flavor enhancer to the tomato products industry for years, but has recently developed SANTE, a version that concentrates all the taste enhancing components but eliminates the tomato flavor. This enables firms to use it as a salt taste enhancer in everything from soups to soy sauces, snack chips, salad dressings and mashed potatoes.
Available as a liquid or a powder, SANTE is heat and pH stable and can be used to 'amplify' the salty taste of the sodium in reduced-sodium foods; round off and balance overall flavor profiles; and serve as a clean-label alternative to MSG, inosinates, guanylates, HVPs and yeast autolyzates in a wide variety of foods, VP business development and new product marketing Doug Lynch told FoodNavigator-USA at the expo.
"The serum we used to sell had a strong tomato taste, whereas SANTE has a very mild taste and can be used in very small quantities - often only around 0.35% of a finished product - which makes it very cost-effective.
"It's becoming popular in spice powder blends, soy sauce, mushroom and other soups and it's selling like a brand new product."
