Kerry launches SucculencePB to help create meat alternatives while improving nutrition and sustainability

Across the globe more consumers are choosing plant-based alternative food and beverages, more often driven by a desire to do better and be better – for their health, the environment and animal welfare. However, as in most categories, taste remains the number number one priority for consumers when buying plant-based and today’s flexitarians are unprepared to compromise. They want a product that tastes great but is also nutritious and has a positive impact on the environment.

When it comes to plant-based meats, the situation is clear. Consumers want meat alternatives that are juicy, succulent and taste like meat, yet at the same time they want products that are healthier, sustainable and made with recognizable ingredients.

The need for a great taste experience is universal. Innovating plant-based foods to be tastier, healthier, and more sustainable can drive consumer adoption. Great taste experience is highly complex and in plant-based foods it is inherently more challenging because the bar is set high – with meat and dairy as the benchmark. Kerry's research, highlighted recently in the Stepping Up Taste in Plant Based, found that flexitarians, the key consumer group driving the growth of plant-based, are more critical of these products versus vegan and vegetarian.

That is why Kerry, one of the world’s leading taste and nutrition partners for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries, has introduced SucculencePB, described by the ingredients expert as a game-changing solution for plant-based meat alternatives that re-creates the delicious, juicy taste of meat.

SucculencePB solves the 'dry mouth' taste challenge often found in cooked plant-based meat alternatives. It also delivers impressive nutritional benefits, including up to a 74% reduction in fat, a 97% decrease in saturated fat content, and up to a 69% drop in calorie count. SucculencePB, the company's new taste solution designed to optimize plant-based products, can satisfy these needs in meat alternatives such as sausages and burgers.

“The Kerry team has worked intensively for years to develop SucculencePB as a significant advance to make plant-based meat alternatives tastier for mainstream consumers," Darren O'Sullivan, Global Portfolio Director of Emerging Taste Technologies for Kerry, told Retail Times. "By retaining moisture, SucculencePB enables product developers to deliver delicious, juicy products with improved nutritional profiles and a cleaner, more sustainable back of pack. It’s a simple solution to use in formulation – a convenient 1:1 replacement for certain oils and fats, and offers manufacturing benefits too, especially when replacing hard fats. This is an exciting taste and nutritional advance in plant-based meats that consumers will certainly notice.

“We look forward to partnering with plant-based meat manufacturers to develop products that will meet consumer taste demands while delivering on the enormous sustainability promise inherent in the plant-based food and beverages movement. Kerry is delighted to unveil SucculencePB as a valuable solution in the European plant-based market, with plans to roll out globally throughout 2023.”

In Kerry's recent Stepping Up Taste in Plant Based study, consumers revealed that the benchmark is beef, but better. What they really mean is they want a burger with only positive taste attributes of a real beef burger coupled with improved nutrition and better environmental impact. The report found that there is such a thing as too much flavor. Salt levels need to be just right, and the flavor must be authentic. Consideration must also be given to the lingering aftertaste. Flavor alone is not enough to satisfy consumers. They want a texture and mouth-feel that’s close to meat. Without this, the overall experience will be disappointing. The cooking process was also indentified as an unsung hero. Consumers are looking for certain ‘beef burger’ cooking cues which signal that a burger is perfectly cooked, safe to eat, and delicious.