Food ingredient companies play a key role in helping food manufacturers reformulate products through the development and regulatory approval of innovative ingredients and by providing expertise to manufacturers.
For example, Tate & Lyle has invested in Innovation Centres across the globe, including one in the EU, and Applications Laboratories specifically to work alongside customers, and other stakeholders, to create innovative solutions and share its reformulation expertise by using an integrated, cross-functional and collaborative approach.
The range of facilities, depending on location, includes culinary centres for recipe development, sensory capabilities, various laboratories, analytical and consumer insight services and pilot plants. Such facilities can also be used for training purposes and have hosted visits from Government parties for educational purposes.
One example of how new ingredient innovation can make a difference are intense sweeteners, e.g. sucralose which was discovered in the UK. Since the first regulatory approval of sucralose, Tate & Lyle has produced sufficient to save up to 62.4 trillion calories.
