Project
Flavor expression
Growing concerns over environmental sustainability, consumer’s healthy diet and animal welfare has lead the industry to develop alternatives to traditional animal-based foods. Plant-based alternatives have emerged as promising solutions to these challenges. However, the adaption and consumption of these products, notably plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, depend largely on meeting consumer expectations, primarily centered around taste, texture.
There is limited knowledge on how different processing steps or the food matrix formulation impact the binding of flavour compounds to proteins – a vital interaction for enhancing the overall sensory experience of plant-based products. While research has explored protein-flavour interactions in controlled settings, a significant gap remains in understanding how these interactions play out in real food matrices and, crucially, during the release of aroma compounds during consumption. Addressing these knowledge gaps is essential for improving the palatability and acceptance of plant-based alternatives among consumers.
FlavPro aims to examine flavor partitioning for selected key-aroma compounds representative of meat, cheese, and culinary flavors derived from plants or herbs with different classes of proteins, in the product formulation and during consumption. This will deliver insights into static binding phenomena and dynamic flavor release during oral processing. This knowledge will provide a solid basis to food manufacturers in the design of plant-based foods with the right flavor solution as a function of the protein type. This information can be used in optimizing these products in terms of sensory quality.