Meat&Poultry - February 2011 - 80

INGREDIENT TRENDS

is consumers are more aware than ever of what they are eating. “There is a big trend to clean up labels and replace chemically sounding ingredients with those that they can pronounce and understand,” he explains. For processors, the actual label is, of course, paramount to communicating a product’s ingredients and overall profi le. Coleman Natural utiliz-

A clean picture
Anyone not sure about the consumer clamor for clean labels can check out retail meat cases and restaurant menus to see how meat and poultry processors, prepared foods companies and operators are going to great lengths to appeal to those who embrace simpler food, whether it’s an all-natural chicken breast, a prepared meal with less than 10 ingredients or a value-added pork tenderloin in a marinade with “recognizable” ingredients, to name just a few examples. Certainly, the marketplace today is markedly different than a decade ago, with visually clean labels (featuring bold colors and simple designs) and labels that are clean from a composition standpoint. That’s evident in fresh meat case in value-added items as well as the deli case and frozen entrée section. Even products with long labels often include explanatory statemen for some ingredistatements ents, like “ad “added for freshness” or “to prevent caking.” pr Ingredient compaIn nies are helping meat and po poultry processors in their effo to provide clean efforts products and communicate the attribute of those products attributes to buyers. Purac, for instance, has Pur continually up updated its portfolio, including recent launches in its re PuraQ Ve Verdad line. “We “W have produced highly effective antimihighl crobials that can be lacrob beled merely as ‘culbel tured sugar, vinegar’ tu in place of a more i traditional label of t ‘sodium lactate, so‘s dium diacetate,’ says d David Meggs, busiD ness development dines rector, adding that exrecto tensive application work has ap been done to make sure those ferBindmax Proteins has developed a ments perform at a high level from range of clean label meat and poultry ingredients, including phosphate a food safety and shelf-life extenreplacers, non-allergen binders, resion standpoint. duced sodium binders, clean label Meanwhile, Bindmax Proteins binders, and natural cure systems. (Photo courtesy of Bindmax Proteins) has developed a range of clean label meat and poultry ingredients, including phosphate replacers, non-allergen binders, reduced sodium binders, clean label binders and natural cure systems. In addition, Bindmax Proteins provides processors with teleconference seminars on ways to use ingredients to formulate clean label products and suggest how to fi nd a market niche for them, according to Rick Cassidy, vice president of product development. ■

Consumers want to get the best food possible but often find terms like “natural” and “all natural” confusing; as a result, they may wrongly infer that anything without a natural or organic claim is bad for them.
es labels for all sorts of educational purposes, according to Safar. “We continue to call out the attributes that are important to consumers and help them understand what our story is. On the back of our products, for example, it says what makes ours different. We say, ‘We raise our products this way,’” she explains. Penn, for his par t, says labels from Good Foods emphasize a host of clean attributes. “We have also created icons to show if a product is gluten-free, or high in fiber,” he says, agreeing that label content and design have become an integral part of product development and marketing. “A label has to be attractive, informative and concise – and you have about two seconds to catch consumers’ eyes” he says. ■
Lynn Petrak is a contributing writer based in the Chicago area. We would like to hear from you – to comment on this story or to request reprints, contact us by e-mail at: meatpoultry@sosland.com.

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