There are several parameters that consumers consider when filling their shopping baskets. Price is one of them, of course. For others, it is more important that the goods come from Sweden. Some look for food with a sustainability label, while others look for keyholes. However, certain parameters are always in the picture - taste and texture.

"For people to make a lifestyle change, it has to taste good, that's how we are. Many new food products are difficult to establish. People may try the product once, but if the taste is not good enough, there is a high risk that they will not buy it again," says Lina Svanberg, Head of Unit at RISE.

Today, there are many techniques for developing new foods. These include growing proteins from fungi and yeast in a controlled environment, such as at RISE's food-grade biotechnology infrastructure in Örnsköldsvik. Or developing plant-based foods that can supplement or replace animal products. The big challenge is to produce food that consumers actually choose, not just once, but on a regular basis. Product design plays an important role in this.

The answer lies in the detail

At RISE's food-approved facility in Gothenburg, nearly 30 researchers and engineers work on food design. The focus is on taste, texture and nutritional content. Much of the work revolves around understanding how to extract functional ingredients from a particular raw material and what type of food that ingredient is best suited to.

"We help companies to develop products that are not yet on the market, but also to optimise and improve the quality of existing ranges. In addition to being able to extract ingredients on a kilo scale and create products, for example through extrusion, baking and emulsification, we have very advanced analytical equipment," says Lina Svanberg, and continues:

"These include microscopy, which allows us to study what is happening in the product in great detail, often combined with measurements of texture and flow properties, as well as aroma analysis, which can detect bee flavours, for example. This helps the customer to answer questions such as why a product does not taste good or loses its consistency during storage."

Taste panel tests new foods

To further optimise the quality of the product, it is important to be able to taste it, says Lina Svanberg.

"There is no analytical instrument that can replace the human sense of taste. That's why it's an advantage that we can produce different products under food-grade conditions so that samples can actually be tasted," she says.

At the food facility, a trained sensory panel of 16 people with a keen sense of taste and the ability to describe taste and texture in a way that can be further used in product development.

Consumer testing is also used to better understand consumers' thoughts and perceptions of a product and how individual differences affect the taste experience. To get the right taste, texture and appearance of a product, it is important to understand what the consumer expects and wants from the product early in the product development process.

Hybrids are coming back

Looking to the future in the field of novel foods, Lina Svanberg points out that there is an increasing demand for the development of hybrid products (products in which parts of the animal raw material are replaced by, for example, a plant-based ingredient).

"Perhaps this is because it is difficult to make a completely plant- or fungus-based alternative that has a big impact. You want to do something because it's better than doing nothing, and hybrid products can be a step in that direction," she says.

RISE's product design team can also help develop and refine these types of novel foods. How do the different ingredients interact with each other, what effect does the manufacturing process have and how does it affect the taste and texture of the final product?

"It's a really exciting area to work in, and I can see how we can help our customers throughout the whole process of developing a product," says Lina Svanberg.

Food production in the future is likely to look very different from today. Work is already underway to supplement conventional ingredients and animal products - with bacteria and fungi. 

"We need to find new types of food to replace environmentally unfriendly products, while ensuring long-term supply. It's all about using resources more efficiently to produce equivalent food for people," says Gunnar Westin, who is responsible for RISE's new food technology infrastructure for biotechnology in Örnsköldsvik.

His team works with microbial ingredients, which are microorganisms that either become part of a food or produce components for a food.

"Together with a customer, we can improve something they have tested on a smaller scale or develop something completely new. A common product in supermarkets today is soy protein in various forms, and our facility can test the production of similar foods but with different raw materials to make the process more sustainable," explains Gunnar Westin.

From waste to protein

So how does it work? Put simply, it involves growing micro-organisms such as fungi, yeasts and bacteria in a controlled environment. Fermentation tanks, where the temperature, pH and oxygen supply are controlled, is an example of such an environment.

The micro-organisms need a carbon source to grow and produce biomass (in this case, what eventually becomes food). The Örnsköldsvik plant uses carbon from agricultural and forestry waste streams, such as the cellulose found in sawdust. Biotechnological methods are used to break down the residues into sugars in particular, which can be consumed by microorganisms and converted into protein and other nutrients. 

The first projects to be launched at the Örnsköldsvik facility will involve the development of meat analogues (meat substitutes), plant-based cheeses and kefir.

"We can work with tens of thousands of micro-organisms in parallel. We can also scale up a process on a very large scale and produce several tonnes of material or ingredients. For example, to verify a new process or for a large-scale market test," says Gunnar Westin.

New food-grade environment strengthens RISE offering 

The fact that the facility in Örnsköldsvik is food-grade means that the products made there can be consumed by humans. This is an important factor for food companies that conduct tests with RISE to be able to use a taste panel and conduct market research.

"At RISE, we have expertise across the food chain, including sensory science, process development and product design. The investment in the new infrastructure is an important addition, giving us new opportunities to use our expertise in biotechnology and food to develop new products and technologies. For example, biotechnology allows us to develop new components that we think would work well in a meat analogue, but to turn it into a product that will be well received by the general public, further development steps are required," says Gunnar Westin. 

Getting a new product accepted by consumers is perhaps the biggest challenge in alternative food. 

"It's not enough for a food to be healthy, people have to choose it. Sometimes it's a matter of imitating something that many people like, sometimes it's a new type of product that we have to get used to," says Gunnar Westin. 

Paving the way for commercialisation

Another challenge is to create the right economic conditions. Today, the knowledge and capacity exists to produce almost anything, but consumers are not prepared to pay for such a process by choosing a vegan substitute that costs many times more than the traditional product.

"Where a lot of effort is required to produce a product, it is important that the process is efficient so that the required quantity is actually produced. And if we take a step back, we first need to identify which of the advances in alternative food research are relevant for actual implementation in society," says Gunnar Westin:

"With my team's technical expertise in biotechnology and our research colleagues' expertise in food, together we can help companies decide whether or not a new idea is worth pursuing. It's very much about combining the experimental part with the economic modelling, so that you get figures on what a process could look like and what it would cost."

In the end, the companies have enough information to take an investor on the road to commercialisation. What started as a single-celled yeast could then end up in the shops as a meat analogue with an acceptable price tag.