Quite apart from high inflation and exploding energy prices, the volatile availability and price fluctuations on raw materials markets are a huge challenge for the food industry. New solutions are needed in order to respond to consumers’ shrinking budgets. Hydrosol, specialist in stabilising and texturing systems, is working hard to find ways to reduce cost-driving raw materials in stabilising systems, as well as to develop new systems on this basis.
One example is ice cream. Locust bean gum is a familiar ingredient here thanks to its many functional properties. Prices have dropped back down a little bit after a huge jump in the spring, but locust bean gum still costs four times what it did a year or two ago. Other galactomannans like tara gum can often produce the desired properties in ice cream when combined with other ingredients like carrageenan. You need to make adjustments with care, in order to reduce or entirely replace locust bean gums.
