Achieving great taste in reduced fat cheese

There has been growing interest in consumers leading a healthier lifestyle and this includes diet and consuming less calories than we need.  Having a choice of foods that are reduced fat means we can still enjoy those food groups that are categorized as unhealthy or fattening, a good example is cheese.

Reduced fat cheese enables dieters to still enjoy this food group without feeling guilty about calories. There is significant demand for great tasting low fat cheese that the dairy industry could be delivering. Although consumers are interested in fat reduced cheese the vast majority are not willing to sacrifice flavour or texture to get a low fat product. A change in consumer flavour perception as a result of reducing fat in cheddar which causes reduction of buttery flavour notes. Reduced fat cheese are characterized as lacking in flavour and have presence of undesirable flavours.

Our FlavourSpec system is capable of identifying any flavour taints in cheese or identifying any changes in flavour profiles when ingredients are changed in recipes. The instrument configuration consists of a GC column coupled to an IMS detector to allow fast and enhanced selectivity of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in the headspace of solid and liquid samples.