Innova – a business division of Griffith Laboratories – says it has developed a proprietary processing technique to create low-sodium HVP made from soy, corn, wheat, or a combination of these, which would require no change to a company’s existing ingredient list. The only difference from regular HVP is a one-third reduction in the ingredient’s sodium content, from about 45% sodium to about 30% sodium, the company says.
Innova’s vice president of innovation, research and development Dr. Dafne Diez de Medina told FoodNavigator-USA: “HVP is a product that has been in the market for over a hundred years and no market innovations have been done with it. It remains pretty stable and conventional.”
That said, the company introduced an HVP product about ten years ago, with the acid hydrolysis process driven by potassium, rather than sodium – but this resulted in inherently high levels of potassium chloride, rather than sodium chloride, in the finished product.
“The problem is the bitterness is so intense,” Diez de Medina said. “The beauty of what we are doing is we are still using sodium as the salt that is formed.”
This means the new HVP ingredient – Vegamine Advanced Technology (AT) – has a similar functionality and flavor to regular HVP, allowing lower overall sodium content in finished products that contain HVP, such as soups, sauces, gravies and snack seasonings.
The company said Vegamine AT is available in a full range of flavor profiles, from poultry-type flavors to beef-type flavors, at a cost impact of about 1 cent per serving, compared with regular HVP.