It’s a new era of baking. New ingredients and innovative discoveries in the bakery sector continue to push the envelope when it comes to meeting consumer demands for clean-label, “keto-friendly,” low-sugar, plant-based, non-GMO, and, especially, gluten-free products.

With more than three out of four consumers worldwide claiming to read ingredient labels, it has become critical that food and beverage manufacturers offer clean-label products consumers can trust. Like the term “natural,” “clean label” has no legal definition, so when it comes to innovative approaches, reformulating, and developing products to carry an allergen-free and clean label, research chefs and manufacturers can find ingredient options confusing.

Vegetable oils still lead the field over animal-based fats when it comes to new food oil developments. Perceived as healthier in that they contain more unsaturated fatty acids, they have faced challenges when it comes to cooking or baking, as they are not normally robust at the high temperatures needed in heat processing.

The explosion of plant-based meat and dairy analogs has created a paradigm shift in the ways food product developers are considering fats and oils. There’s plenty of innovation around plant-based meat alternatives, especially as they expand beyond burgers, sausages, and poultry into mimics of bacon, pork, and even such highly specific items as turkey burgers.

Sauces, dressings, and condiments, such as mayonnaise, benefit in obvious ways from the emulsifying properties of the egg yolk. While it is easy to observe the importance of a stable emulsion in mayonnaise or a dressing where one can witness the battle between immiscible liquids (typically water and fat) as they strive to separate from each other, emulsifiers play an important although less obvious role in other formulations.

Prepared Foods talks dips, sauces and condiment trends with David Bezenyei, sales manager, Columbus Vegetable Oils. Based in Des Plaines, Ill., Columbus Vegetable Oils produces a wide range of sauces, dressings, condiments and oils for private label and contract manufacturing customers. Likewise, it supplies a Butcher Boy sauce line to foodservice operators.

Gums and hydrocolloids are a diverse collection of polysaccharides that create gel-like formations when in contact with moisture. They are extremely versatile, improving texture, mouthfeel, and physical appearance in foods and beverages. Gums can be used to increase viscosity levels or benefit flow. They are especially prized for increasing stability in an ingredient matrix.

The global demand for clean-label ingredients has more than 60% of Americans believing natural products are better for them, according to researchers at The Hartman Group. And more than half of Americans claim they are actively seeking “natural” ingredients when shopping for food products.

As consumers seek healthier options and greater convenience in prepared and packaged foods, gums and fibers are receiving new recognition as important ingredients for health and biological functions as well as stability and texture. Fibers and gums often provide added health benefits — including improvements in blood sugar regulation, weight loss, and gut health — while lending texture and structure to foods and beverages.

The “clean label” trend is increasing the reliance on natural gums and fibers for stability, functional properties, quality, and safety. In the process of researching them further, ingredient technologists and product developers are discovering that some of these ingredients are revealing new and highly valued nutritional attributes in a range of food products.