Food Marketing & Technology - India June 2019 | Page 52

Packaging NANOTECHNOLOGY FOR FLAVOURS: A FOOD INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE BY: ANU BHUSANI * F lavour is the first thing you relish in your morning coffee. So what does flavour constitute - aroma or taste of the food? The answer is both. Flavour is a sensory impression of food that is felt simultaneously by the tongue as taste and the nose as the aroma. Humans can perceive only five tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami), but can distinguish one trillion different aromas. Also, aroma contributes to 80 percent of what we perceive as a taste of food. Hence, the flavour is an important parameter that maximizes the quality, acceptability and global competitiveness of a food product. However, flavours in foods are greatly degraded by chemical or physical reactions during harsh food processing conditions. Here, nanotechnology can aid in flavour retention, flavour enhancement, controlled release of flavour and masking of off-flavours. Let us understand in brief how nanotechnology has a role in the flavour of foods. Nanoencapsulation of Flavours Nanoencapsulation is the process of packing a core compound within a wall matrix at dimensions in nanoscale (< 1000 nm). Flavours can be encapsulated using various techniques to obtain the encapsulated product in powder, paste or liquid form. Mostly, flavours are encapsulated using spray drying; spray chilling; homogenization and extrusion techniques. The choice of wall material (e.g. biopolymers, protein, carbohydrates, and lipids) depends on the end use of the encapsulated flavour. For use in bakery products, powder form of flavour encapsulated using starch or protein Food Marketing & Technology 52 June 2019 is preferred; in beverages, liquid form of flavour emulsified with lipids is used. Flavours are encapsulated prior to the crucial processing step in order to protect the compound from degradation. However, for use in frozen products like ice creams, flavours are directly added to the product during homogenization or agitation processes which act as an encapsulation technique. The emulsion particles produced during homogenization protect the flavour compounds during processing and storage. Nanoencapsulation in Controlled Flavour Release Nanoencapsulation is advantageous not only to protect the flavour during processing and storage but also to aid in controlled release of flavours from