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TwitterPepsiCo Inc, has reportedly developed a new ‘designer salt’ whose crystals are shaped and sized in a way that limits the amount of sodium intake, of the consumer. The production will begin at a pilot manufacturing plant in Texas, later this month.
This salt, it is expected, will cut sodium levels by 25% in its Lay’s Classic potato chips and even more than that in seasoned Lay’s chips like Sour Cream & Onion, PepsiCo said, and it could be used in other products like Cheetos and Quaker bars. It is still being studied and tested with consumers though.
Low Sodium PepsiCo
The designer salt is one of the most serious efforts by a food processing company yet, to take on the concerns among government officials about the possible health effects of the use of sodium in processed food. High sodium is the cause of high blood pressure and heart disease. In fact according to the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention, most Americans consume about twice their recommended limit daily. To add to the woes of food processing companies, most of the salt intake has also been seen to be through processed foods. Many health organizations are rooting for cutting sodium intake in processed foods by 25 percent in the next five years. U.S. dietary guidelines also recommend a reduction in sodium intake; in fact the first lady Michelle Obama, is also pressing food companies to cut fat, salt and sugar in their products.
At an investor conference on Monday in New York, the company said it is committed to cutting its products’ average sodium per serving by 25% by 2015 and saturated fat and added sugar by 15% and 25%, respectively, this decade. It has hired health experts and scientists, including Mehmood Khan, a former Mayo Clinic endocrinologist, and Derek Yach, a former World Health Organization chronic diseases chief to carry out the research.
The new salt represents PepsiCo’s latest step to cut back on unhealthy ingredients in big sellers like soda and potato chips. The company has also switched from frying its potato chips in transfats to using sunflower oil, and it has boosted spending to $414 million in 2009 from $282 million in 2006 for product development.
“What we want to do with our “fun for you” products is to make them the healthiest “fun for you” products,” Chairman Indra Nooyi said. “We want our potato chips to be fried in the healthiest oils with the lowest salt.”
Cutting salt out of foods is however, not as easy as it sounds, because it adds body to foods as well as enhancing flavor. In addition, little is understood about how salt is perceived on the tongue. salt is one of only three ingredients in Lay’s Classic potato chips (the others: potatoes and oil). Reducing the amount or using substitutes would alter the chips’ flavor, said Greg Yep, a global research and development vice president. So the challenge is reducing salt without altering the flavor in anyway.
While PepsiCo says that it cannot use substitutes, working with smaller salt particles gives a taste that is intense but too fleeting. Instead, it has studied different shapes of salt crystals to try to find one that would dissolve more efficiently on the tongue. Normally, only about 20% of the salt on a chip actually dissolves on the tongue before the chip is chewed and swallowed, and the remaining 80% is swallowed without contributing to the taste, said Dr. Khan, who oversees PepsiCo’s long-term research.
So in effect, PepsiCo is looking for a product substitute that can replicate the ‘salt curve’ – giving an initial spike of saltiness followed by a lingering sensation of taste, thus retaining the joy of the ‘eating experience’.
It could take two more years before the new salt is introduced, however.
Whether PepsiCo will achieve its target- mid-single-digit revenue growth and mid-to-high single-digit operating profit growth in its beverage business, as elucidated in the investor conference, is certainly a thought which can be salted away for the time being atleast.
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