The clean label revolution: What is it and how it impacts on industrial manufacturers in the Agri-Food sector

We live in food-phobic times. Some consumers no longer trust processed products and the food industry in general. And so the Clean Label concept was born to meet consumer demands for authenticity, transparency and simplicity.

WHAT IS CLEAN LABEL?

There's no exact, standardised or regulated definition of Clean Label, but the term is used to refer to a corporate process aimed at:

• Simplifying ingredient lists.
• Ensuring ingredient lists are clear and easy to understand for end consumers, by prioritising ingredients familiar to most consumers.
• Eliminating additives and ingredients considered to be 'artificial' compared to ingredients deemed more 'natural'. Goodbye to food colouring, synthetic flavouring and all E numbers,
• hello to authentic products made from a maximum of ingredients all sourced from the same environment. A nutritional dairy product, for example, is required to use as many dairy-based ingredients as possible (protein, sugar, minerals).

WHY AND WHERE DID THE CLEAN LABEL REVOLUTION START?

We live in food-phobic times. Some consumers no longer trust processed products, preferring to opt for authentic, transparent and simple products instead.

North America, Europe and Asia abound with food trends and fads. These new consumer demands are pushing manufacturers (including the nutrition sector) to focus on offering Clean Label products, which is fast becoming a non-negotiable requirement to market penetration.

There can sometimes be a crossover with other labels that focus on different objectives: allergies, GMO, organic, etc.

The terms 'natural' and 'artificial' have no precise definition, which allows for potentially ambiguous interpretations. As an example, a plant extract might be considered artificial, while an essential oil is deemed natural.

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HOW DOES THE CLEAN LABEL PROCESS IMPACT ON INGREDIENT MANUFACTURERS?

Removing additives or 'artificial' ingredients can sometimes be a complex task that requires a huge amount of Research and Development to recreate the same flavours, textures and shelf lives of existing products.

Ingredient manufacturers, and especially those involved in producing dairy ingredients such as Armor Protéines, will be called upon to advise their clients, whether manufacturers or distributors, as to which products in their range are best suited to the issues at hand.

SO IS CLEAN LABEL JUST A MARKETING PROCESS?

No, to the contrary: all a company's departments are affected:

• Marketing departments will need to identify consumer priorities,
• R&D departments will be required to whip up new recipes (product formulation),
• Manufacturing departments will have to adapt to new ingredients: the sourced products may not have the same cost price.

Clean Label is a cross-company endeavour.

ARE SOME SECTORS MORE CLEAN LABEL-HEAVY THAN OTHERS?

Naturally (no pun intended), the nutrition sectors. These companies offer products that claim to be of nutritional value and are the main targets of these Clean Label processes.

For example,

• Selling a 'rich-in-calcium' dairy product with added calcium chloride is clearly not Clean Label-compliant! Today, we have access to milk-derived calcium that allows us to develop a more 'authentic' product.
• Texturising dairy products with alginates is not Clean Label. Doing so with milk proteins is most certainly 'cleaner'.