Before designing a snack food, it is important to identify the sensory expectations. “Snacks are an emotional and engaging experience for consumers, and a big part of that experience involves multiple senses,” says Suzanne Mutz-Darwell, marketing manager, texture, National Starch Food Innovation, Bridgewater, NJ. “It is the crispiness of the texture, the lightness of the puff or the crunchiness of the first bite. It is also the sound ringing in the consumer’s ears as they devour their favorite treat.
“Perhaps the most important work of our sensory team is its analysis of basic consumer snack-food descriptors, such as ‘crispy’ and ‘crunchy,’ and their translations into a language that our food formulators can act upon—factors such as hardness, fracturability and duration of sound, along with many others,” continues Mutz-Darwell.
The goal is to avoid sensory trade-offs in healthier snacks. “Quite often, when formulating for a healthier product with reduced fat, texture and taste may be compromised,” says Mutz-Darwell. “Butter, fats and oils make a large contribution to texture and flavor in crackers and chips. Cut back on those, and the product suffers. The desired texturizer for a particular product will depend on the target texture, the other formula ingredients and the process. The application team has produced a broad range of textures that are ideal for sheeted, baked crackers and fabricated chips. These textures can be applied to all types of better-for-you snack foods, ranging from delicate and crispy to bold and crunchy,” as well as a middle ground texture the company calls “crinchy.”
Donna Berry, president of Chicago-based Dairy & Food Communications, Inc., a network of professionals in business-to-business technical and trade communications, has been writing about product development and marketing for 13 years. Prior to that, she worked for Kraft Foods in the natural-cheese division. She has a B.S. in food science from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. She can be reached at donnaberry@dairy-food.com.
