Product development must apply creative solutions to meet clients’ target cost of goods, discover workarounds for ingredient shortages, and deliver great tasting, longer shelf-life, and clean label products. In her 2023 Clean Label Conference presentation “Case Study Stories: An Inside Look at Reformulating Products Due to Supply Chain Disruptions & Increased Prices,” Jaime Reeves, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Product Development & Commercialization, Mattson, addressed these issues.
One case discussed a plant-based creamer from Tevriva. The other two case studies are presented below.
Case Study – RTD Beverage
Pirq™ Plant-Based RTD Beverages containing superfoods curcumin and maca are available in Decadent Chocolate, Golden Vanilla, and Caramel Coffee. Mattson helped create the successful line in 2018. Sales were good until Covid hit. Supply chain disruption of erythritol sent the owners of the small company back to Mattson for reformulation with the following goals:
- Remove erythritol. Maintain “no sugar added” claim but with the same sensory attributes.
- Increase plant-based protein from 12 to 15g/serving.
Since Mattson had several variables to address (i.e., sweeteners, flavor, protein increase, viscosity), they systematically broke down the process and started with the sweeteners system on the vanilla version.
Although new sweeteners were sourced and sampled, they found the best-tasting stevia was already being used, so they increased its level. The vanilla flavor was increased to mask the bitterness associated with stevia.
The same strategy was applied to the other two flavors. However, the increased coffee flavor also increased bitterness. “We started scouting for sweetener enhancers or bitterness (maskers). Many sweetener enhancers have underlying notes of monk fruit and erythritol, which helped deliver the same flavor profile,” explained Reeves.
“We ended up using sweetener enhancers across all three SKUs,” she added. When increasing protein, Mattson found that pea, almond, and brown rice were still optimal sources, but a new pea protein at 1/3 the price of the original saved on cost but added more pea flavor. “We had a pea masker in the original formula (that) worked well. We ended up increasing the pea masker,” claimed Reeves.
Viscosity was Mattson’s final hurdle. As the increased protein helped increase viscosity, it was just a matter of adjusting gum levels, noted Reeves. Following the relaunch in 2022, the products have the same quality flavor with 15g of protein and without the erythritol that had caused such supply chain disruptions.
Case Study – Frozen Side Dishes
Mattson was tasked with reformulating The Honey Baked Ham Co.’s frozen side dishes based on the following criteria:
- Convert from lengthy ingredient statements to clean labels.
- Target year-round consumption vs. holidays only.
- Expand product line from 10 to 11 SKUs.
- Identify new co-packer(s) and help commercialize.
Mattson began by using Protothink, the company’s online brainstorming and ideation tool. TURF analysis, sourced to assess the effects of product combinations on consumer purchase decisions, was also used. SKUs were refreshed by converting items, such as sweet potato casserole to sweet potato souffle, followed by developing new SKUs, such as Tuscan Broccoli.
Culinary standards were developed from scratch and then converted to formulations by sourcing robust ingredients conducive to freezing, noted Reeves. Freeze/thaw cycling was tested, followed by the development of microwave cooking instructions by a third party.
Finally, formulations were scaled up. All went well, except for the sweet potato souffle, which was watery. It was determined that the co-packer’s equipment setup resulted in residual water in the kettle. Mattson’s commercialization expert worked with the co-packer to solve the issue by adding extra potato flakes without compromising the clean ingredient statement or adding capital, noted Reeves.
“We were able to shift their product offering from old-school to new, clean contemporary, (and) helped them save money by starting from scratch; looking at every ingredient; and finding a new co-packer,” said Reeves.
Evaluating new vendors is advantageous, “especially if they have something new, novel, and differentiated from everyone else,” expressed Reeves. “Evaluate what’s out there to find new technology and better tasting, better-costing ingredients,” she concluded.
“Case Study Stories: An Inside Look at Reformulating Products Due to Supply Chain Disruptions & Increased Prices,” Jaime Reeves, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Product Development & Commercialization, Mattson.
The caption to sweet potato feature photo: In the Honey Baked Ham Co.’s Sweet Potato Souffle scale-up, the co-packer’s equipment produced a product with excess water. This was addressed by adding extra potato flakes.
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