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Press release.
07/02/2012
Improving the quality of everyday food products: launch of the European project TeRiFiQ
In a healthy diet and in specific proportions, salt, fat and sugar are essential ingredients. However, most developed countries are currently confronted by an increase in pathologies such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, which are linked to poorly balanced diets and an excessive consumption of salt, fat and sugar. The European-funded 4-year project TeRiFiQ, launched today and coordinated by INRA, aims to use research and technological innovation to achieve a significant reduction in the levels of these ingredients in foods, and thus contribute to preventing and/or alleviating numerous pathologies that would save many lives.
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The European Commission wishes to implement deliberately targeted preventive policies with respect to emerging nutrition-related pathologies. These policies require the availability of scientific and technological knowledge of human physiology, the composition and structure of foods, and consumer behaviour. Recent advances in these fields, notably by INRA research teams, now offer the possibility of using adapted food substitutes in new formulations to be applied in the short and medium terms. This task is however complex, because these ingredients generally contribute to different food characteristics such as flavour, aroma, texture, rheological properties, preservation, etc.
The TERIFIQ project (Combining Technologies to achieve significant binary Reductions in salt Fat and sugar in everyday foods whilst optimising their nutritional Quality), aims in particular:
- To reduce salt, fat and sugar levels in cheeses, meats, bakery products and ready-to-eat foods, whilst at the same time maintaining their nutritional and sensory qualities so that they will remain acceptable to consumers.
- To study the macro- and micro-structure of these products, and to estimate the nutritional value of reformulated foods versus traditional products. The results of this work will be used to optimise the reformulations and cooking processes implemented.
These applied objectives concern numerous everyday foods, based on realistic models and achieved by adjusting technological parameters:
- To reduce the sodium content (by up to 30%) in different types of cheese (soft paste, semi-hard and hard) while at the same time improving the fat quality
- To reduce levels of saturated fats and sodium (by up to 50%) in cooked sausages and dried cured sausages, using techniques such as multiple emulsions and the cryocrystallisation of fats
- To reduce fat and sugar levels in "muffin"-type products by up to 25%
- To reduce fat levels by up to 50% in the sauces used for ready-to-eat foods. (Reducing salt levels will also be studied.)
One of the major goals of this project is to demonstrate that these new formulations are transposable at an industrial scale. In this context, demonstration activities (the production of reformulated foods by industry and consumer studies) will be carried out by several SME from different European countries.
Coordinated by INRA in Dijon and managed by INRA-Transfert, this project involves 16 European partners with scientific expertise in different areas, ranging from fundamental to applied expertise, together with several industrial partners. The project will last for four years (January 2012 to December 2015) with the first three years being devoted to the research phase, and the final year mainly focusing on the transfer of technologies to industry. The project received a budget of 4 million euros.
* The TeRiFiQ project started officially on January 1, 2012. The kick-off meeting is held in Dijon on February 7-8.
- List of partners |
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Written by :
INRA press service, phone: +33 (0)1 42 75 91 69
presse@inra.fr
Contacts :
Christian Salles, Project Coordinator
+33 (0)3 80 69 30 79 - christian.salles@dijon.inra.fr
Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation
Nutrition, Chemical Food Safety and Consumer Behaviour Division
INRA Centre Dijon
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