DELIVERING FUNCTIONAL SOLUTIONS

The use of functional solutions enables improvements to key attributes such as taste, texture, juiciness, tenderness, as well as the mitigation of potentially unattractive aspects of a product. In both cases, the aim is to optimise the food.

At Solina, our heritage is in developing functional solutions to serve the meat businesses, but the capabilities translate to all sectors of the food industry. A functional binder compound can be equally applicable to a ready meal dumpling or ravioli, opening up opportunities to apply expertise gained on one project to optimise the stability, quality and cost of a different product. The key is to have experts who can see and realise the opportunities.

ACHIEVING THE DESIRED CHARACTERISTICS

Possessing a deep understanding of how to achieve desired characteristics, Solina is alert to the wide variety of options open to food technologists, scientists and engineers. Binding, for example, influences the texture of a product. That fact empowers our teams to explore the deployment of processes such as brining, dry curing, fermenting and protein activation to create foods that have the texture, taste and other characteristics demanded by the customer.

ADAPTING TO CONSUMER TRENDS

Changing consumer demands are redefining the toolkit of functional solutions available to give colour, stability, texture, shelf life and more to products. A growing proportion of people want clearer labels that only feature ingredients they understand. Our ingredient-agnostic approach means we are free to select the proper ingredients matching the requirements of each project, regardless of its origin. This flexibility and agility helps our experts to devise clear labels that meet the needs of consumers and food providers, alike.

Consumer trends are simultaneously increasing the importance of quality. The quality trend plays to the strengths of Solina and our culinary heritage. Drawing on our knowledge of how foods have been made traditionally, Solina can remove additives and processing steps while maintaining or improving the overall properties of a product.

WHAT CONSUMERS WANT

Nutrition is a top priority for many consumers. Equipped with easy access to information such as Nutri-Score, buyers are factoring nutrition into their purchasing decisions more than ever. The shift demands a response from the food industry and other providers of savoury products. Taste remains essential but it is no longer sufficient.

Solina’s long history of offering nutritional solutions and continued investment in the space mean we are ideally placed to help customers navigate the changing landscape. With deep expertise and a technology-agnostic approach, we are equipped to help you meet all of your nutritional goals.

TAILORING NUTRITIONAL PROFILES

There are many routes to healthier and more nutritious products. Our experts are equally adept at reducing levels of fat, salt and other undesired ingredients as they are at fortifying savoury food products with nutrition-enhancing elements such as dietary fibres and vitamins. Through such changes, we positively influence the nutritional profiles of products to make them more desirable to health-conscious consumers.

Solina, guided by our culinary heritage, sees every nutritional change through the lens of how it affects taste and functional characteristics such as texture and juiciness. Like consumers, we are unwilling to compromise on the sensory properties of food. Our combination of nutritional expertise, culinary heritage and unwavering commitment to great tasting food results in products that excel in both sensory and health terms.

PROACTIVELY MEETING NUTRITIONAL NEEDS

Unprecedented numbers of consumers are making fundamental changes to what they eat, for instance by considering specific foods for increasing gut health, mental health and immunity. Guided by market insights, we think proactively about what consumers desire from foods to ensure they continue getting essential proteins, vitamins and minerals, resulting in great-testing products that anticipate nutritional needs.

CREATING TASTE SENSATIONS

Solina has a comprehensive arsenal of ways to make savoury food taste great. When striving to improve the taste of a product, we can apply seasoning blends featuring herbs and spices, flavourings and a range of liquid solutions spanning from bouillons and stocks, to emulsified and cook-up sauces.

By sourcing quality ingredients from suppliers such as flavour houses, rather than being tied to a limited set of proprietary products, our food experts always have the right sources for each specific project. The combination of untrammelled access to ingredients, culinary heritage, extensive technical expertise and the unrivalled creativity of our food experts equips us to rise to any taste challenge.

TAILORING TO LOCAL TASTES

Solina is a global company with extensive local connections. Forging close ties to the markets we serve, enables our teams to create products customised to the specific taste preferences of different countries and consumer segments. The depth of knowledge of local taste preferences enables Solina to define what a customer needs to succeed in a particular market.

We understand the differences between the taste profiles of a French and Turkish tomato soup or a German and Polish cooked sausage, and how to adapt recipes to deliver products tailored to each market. Some adaptations are simple, such as altering salt levels to account for preferences in Asia and Europe, but other changes are more involved and have knock-on effects.

BALANCING ALL THE ELEMENTS

Taste, while critical to food, cannot be viewed in isolation from other factors. The interplay of all the elements and Solina’s mastery of them is exemplified by the differences between shawarma in Germany, Lebanon and Turkey. Equipped with deep local knowledge, we understand that the use of lemon juice is a defining characteristic of shawarma in Lebanon. Crucially, we also know the impact lemon has on texture and can adapt accordingly, for example by using a flavour rather than a juice.

Changes to taste can also affect yield, nutrition and other factors. The intertwined nature of all the elements results in a balancing act. Solina’s extensive experience enables our teams to foresee when a change to improve taste will negatively affect another key variable such as yield and ultimately to create products that deliver on every dimension.