Baking & Snack - July 2004 - 100

purple foods. Such colors, however, would
not be recognized as being savory.
Understanding the five functions of
color in shaping human reactions to
foods will help guide the product developer's selection.
* Perception. Both selection and
judgment of food quality is extremely difficult if color discrimination were to be
removed, even though other cues are
left intact.
* Motivation. Both the color of a
food and the color of the environment
in which the food is seen can significantly increase or decrease its appeal.
* Emotion. Liking or disliking a
food is conditioned by its color. For
example, most individuals do not
respond positively to a barbecue-flavored item that is bright green.
* Learning. By experience, we
learn what colors to expect and consider natural, and we predict the
properties of a food or beverage
based on those colors.
Liquid smoke has been turned
into a powder to flavor snacks
and other foods requiring dry
application.
Hickory Specialties

4HE

* Thinking. Reactions to new foods
can be tempered by explanations. Of
course, even conditioning might not
elicit a positive response to that green
barbecue product.

INTO PRACTICE
Mintel International Group, a Chicago,
IL-based international source of media,
product and consumer intelligence,
is known for its research about new
products in the food and beverage
industry. In a recent Mintel survey
of persons who influence purchase
of flavoring ingredients, respondents
indicated that the flavors that would
most likely be purchased for new products were those based on fruits, cheeses
or chocolates. Yet hard on the heels of
those were the savory flavors, including savory flavor enhancers, smoked
flavors, Mexican, Tex-Mex, hot flavors
and barbecue flavors.
Such interest indicated that the
trends may favor fruits and other
sweet tastes, but rich, savoryflavored products continue to
appeal. This finding was supported by the next question
in the survey. It asked which
flavors not listed in the first

question would their company be most
likely to use. The top vote getters were
Latin American, beef and chicken flavors.
An interesting example of a company
manufacturing savory flavor systems is
More Than Gourmet, Akron, OH. Company c.e.o. Brad Sacks is a chef who decided to commercialize his expertise. The
company does not produce ingredients but
instead manufactures concentrated glaces and bases. Its products are made from
bones, vegetables and other flavors. Its
mission is to make life easier for the chef or
homemaker by doing all the hard work for
them. More Than Gourmet boils the bones
and other ingredients for hours, concentrates the flavors and packages them for
distribution to the restaurant trade and
through gourmet food shops. This saves
chefs (and consumers) hours of time and
effort yet allows them to serve rich sauces
simply by diluting the concentrate with
water and heating.
The example demonstrates how complicated it is to use traditional methods
to make rich savory flavors. Product
development scientists may use stocks or
other bases in producing flavor systems,
but they will certainly not boil the bones
to produce those stocks. That involves too
much time and money.

6%2/.
®

8YLANASE!DVANTAGE
/URBAKINGSCIENTISTSDISCOVEREDTHEXYLANASEADVANTAGESOMEYEARSAGOANDWE
HAVEBEENPERFECTINGXYLANASEPOWEREVERSINCE7ITHOURKNOW
HOWWECANHELP
YOUACHIEVETHEFOLLOWING
s%XCELLENTFREEZETHAWSTABILITY
s'REATER6OLUME
s3TABLEELASTICDOUGH
s,OWER$OUGH6ISCOSITY
s%ASY
TOMANAGEDOUGHPROCESSING
7EALSOOFFERAFULLRANGEOF6%2/.
BAKINGENZYMESFORAWIDEVARIETYOF
APPLICATIONS IN BREAD DOUGH WAFERS
CRACKERS BISCUITS HIGH
lBER AND RYE
BREADSTORTILLASANDCHIPS

100 / BAKING & SNACK / July 2004

For more information, see Page 173

2OCKMONT$R
&ORT-ILL3#
4EL

&AX

WWWABENZYMESCOM

Baking & Snack - July 2004

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baking & Snack - July 2004