BRF Ingredients launches natural meat flavor
The ingredients, natural chicken and pork flavor, are available in liquid and powder form.
“It’s a very natural product that’s rich in flavor with a presence of umami. This is a very new and differentiated ingredient especially when talking about Brazil and South America,” said Gabriela Dal Vesco, global marketing manager at BRF Ingredients.
“One of the advantages we have is the process, which means we have a very natural product with no artificial additives.”
BRF Ingredients slow cooks the raw material – bones that still contain meat after the bigger cuts have been removed for the B2C market – until it ends up with a rich broth. It then dries the broth, which leaves a concentrated powder.
“You can use it in broths, noodles, and soups if you want a rich, meat flavor but you have the benefit of having a high crude protein level,” she added.
The flavor contains at least 60 g protein per 100g powder and 30% as liquid, as well as between 13 and 15% fat, and between 10 and 14% salt.
Made with concentrated meat flavor, salt, dextrin, and tocopherol, it can currently be labeled as 'meat flavor' but BRF Ingredients is in the process of changing the production so manufacturers can list it as 'meat extract'. It expects the changes to be finalized by the end of the year.
“All over the world, consumers are changing their habits, and here in Brazil, we are changing as well. People are looking for natural ingredients and food, and demand for this product will be a consequence of this trend,” said Dal Vesco, adding that there was a gap in the Brazilian market for this kind of natural extract.
The flavor, which launched at FISA in Sao Paolo last week, currently shares a production line with other products but BRF Ingredients is planning to build a new factory specifically for the meat flavor to increase its capacity, although the date and location have not yet been confirmed.
Beyond Brazil
BRF Ingredients was established three years ago and has four divisions – animal nutrition, food ingredients, plant nutrition, and health and well-being – and has two R&D laboratories in Jundiaí and Concórdia, 20 factories and an additional 13 third-party manufacturing plants.
Its food ingredients are currently sold in Brazil only but the supplier is keen to develop exports. It is currently in the process of registering the meat extract for the US market and in the short-term is looking to start shipping to Vietnam, China, and Japan.
“BRF Ingredients is pretty new but we have launched many products in these four divisions. In the food division, we have this new meat extract and we are [developing] some processes to differentiate the side proteins like by adding color or [through] different-sized particles,” said Dal Vesco, who previously worked at parent company BRF and was involved in setting up its B2B ingredient division.
