Home > Industry News > Bakery Ingredients Industry News > Clean Label Baked Goods
Clean label baked goods are no longer a trend—they’re an expectation. Over the past five years there’s been a double digit increase in clean label claims for bread products alone in four of Europe’s largest markets.
While consumers may be unsure about the exact definition of ‘clean label,’ they have strong views about what goes inside their baked goods, how sustainably they are produced and how healthy they are.
Consumers now expect to see familiar sounding, natural ingredients that are good both for them and the planet. And if they’re not sure of what an ingredient or E number is they are quick to google it on their phones whilst standing on the retail floor.
Delighting baked goods consumers together
But label-friendly credentials aren’t enough. Survey after survey has shown that consumers aren’t willing to compromise on taste, texture or shelf life.
The challenge now facing bakery manufacturers is considerable: How do you offer consumers clean label deliciousness, while keeping production costs down and maintain product quality and shelf life?
Working with an ingredients partner who can help manufacturers navigate the clean label journey is key to this problem due to the various experience they have in helping other manufacturers traverse the same business challenges. This partner should also have an in-depth understanding of shifting consumer desires, the complexities of product creation and exactly what it takes to succeed on the shelves.
“Clean Label” means baked goods made with ingredients which are:
FSL and IFF have created a system to understand a customer’s objectives and then reformulate and launch clean label-friendly products in alignment with these objectives:
A ‘Clean Label Journey’ tool for baked goods is part of our drive to help you make the most effective choices. This tool maps out the journey from “traditional label” to “cleanest label” and highlights the possible impact on key features such as volume, process robustness and crumb quality so that we can help find the most suitable solution.
Once you know what your journey looks like, we can help you reformulate
to meet your goals.
With years of experience working in the bakery industry (1 in 4 loaves of bread contain our ingredients) and with one of the broadest, most effective clean label toolboxes, we provide responsible, familiar and better-for-you reformulation solutions:
✅ Label-friendly enzymes that improve the strength and handling of dough throughout the baking process, giving baked goods a fine, uniform crumb structure and maintain freshness and moistness over shelf life.
✅ Sustainably produced emulsifiers and plant sourced lecithins that are optimized for dough strengthening, bread softness and greater processing tolerance.
✅ Fermented ingredients called fermentates and well-known naturally occurring antimicrobials, maintaining baked goods microbial quality over shelf life thus reducing waste.
✅ Natural plant extracts and flavourants that prevent rancid off-flavors, minimize color changes, and ensure fresh flavors throughout shelf life.
✅ Label-friendly hydrocolloids that help improve food texture and moisture retention.
✅ Functional systems or blends of ingredients enabling E-number free
solutions.
Moreover, several of our ingredients help to maintain quality during shelf life, thereby enabling reduction of food waste, or help enable fat and sugar reduction for better-for-you solutions.
Our extensive consumer and market insights combined with sensory, technical and production expertise give you the best chance of success in the clean label space. We’re here to help you anticipate and respond to changing consumer trends and regulatory guidelines
with:
✅ Technical support to address each aspect of your products formulation.
✅ Regulatory support to optimize your clean labels.
✅ Reliable product information, and transparent
and sustainable supply chains.
We’re here for you, wherever you are and whatever
your set-up.
Enzyme solutions for cleaner label baked goods
IFF & FSL’s POWERBAKE series of enzymes is the most robust alternative to existing emulsification and oxidation technologies in bread production. These enzymes improve the strength and handling of dough throughout the process, and give baked goods a fine, uniform crumb structure while keeping labels easy to understand and consumer friendly.
POWERBake® is a label-friendly enzyme solution that can be used to replace emulsification technologies in bread baking.
We have spent decades at the forefront of emulsification technologies for the bread industry and are known for our knowledge of ingredients, comprehensive understanding of formulas, and production experience across all types of baked goods. Our expertise enables customers to formulate across the clean-label spectrum in response to consumer demand.
POWERBake 6600 is our latest enzyme which is an alternative emulsification technology for cleaner label sliced bread based on European formulations and recipes.
POWERBake 6650 is a similarly robust emulsification alternative, optimized for European formulations and recipes for buns and rolls.
POWERBake 7650 is the oxidative module supporting our POWERBake 6000 series. Used in combination with POWERBake 6000, it enables the replacement of mono and diglycerides + SSL or DATEM, while maintaining product quality.
Key Benefits:
✅ Improves dough stability, proofing and handling
✅ Improves dough strengthening
✅ Improves shock tolerance during processing
✅ Increases volume and initial softness
✅ Works with all types of bread, buns/rolls, and baguettes
✅ Provides cost-effective, concentrated solutions
✅ Is robust and tolerates quality fluctuations in flour
