Discover how adding revolutionary microparticles can make major improvements to low-sodium food production.
Key takeaways:
- Public awareness and regulatory attitudes are shifting toward sodium reduction in snack foods
- Lower-sodium products can help improve consumer health
- Conventional salt substitutes come with caveats that can alienate customers
- MicroSalt® is an innovative solution for creating low-sodium, full-flavor snacks
Picture it: a potential partner presents themselves to your snack business with a simple way to respond to regulatory and market pressures for lower-sodium snacks that don’t compromise on taste. And their service won’t even involve dramatic and expensive changes to your existing production processes.
If that sounds good to you, keep reading to learn more about the importance of reducing sodium in snack foods and the ingredient that can make this perfect partnership a reality.
The problem with sodium in snack foods
Two of the biggest features of salty snacks are that they taste delicious, and shoppers eat them by the cartload. The U.S. snack market alone was worth $48 billion in 2022, and many of those snacks are exorbitantly high in sodium. At first glance, then, it may seem as if keeping snacks salty and not rocking the boat is a win-win for everyone, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The negative impact on public health caused by excessively salty snacks is enormous. It’s why snack makers are facing widespread and increasing pressure from health organizations and government agencies to significantly reduce the levels of salt in their products over the next few years. These recommendations, combined with growing public health awareness, are transforming the traditional salty snack from popular choice to problematic issue.
More and more consumers are catching on to the fact that chronic and potentially fatal conditions like cardiovascular disease (CVD), hypertension (high blood pressure), obesity, and diabetes are all directly linked to excessive sodium consumption. For example, a systematic review and analysis suggests that the risk of CVD increases by 6% with every extra gram (1000 mg) of sodium consumed.
For that reason, surveys show that three-quarters of consumers want less sodium in manufactured foods, while more than half want more control over the amount of sodium in their diet. These new health-conscious consumers are also catching on to food labeling terminology that allows “stealth salt” to sneak into their lives – and avoiding products that use it.
So the need for reduced-sodium snack foods is clear: they can help people lead healthier lives while keeping snack manufacturers in line with evolving consumer attitudes and regulatory requirements. The biggest challenge is finding a new solution to the old question: how can manufacturers create low-sodium snacks that don’t compromise on flavor and don’t use ingredients that have to be hidden behind misleading labels?
MicroSalt®: a revolutionary solution for sodium reduction
A growing number of consumers may be aware of how salt is harming their health, but they’re also only human. Most of us find it hard to stop eating salty things. We’re all hardwired to react positively to the taste of salt since it’s essential in small doses to healthy bodily and cognitive functions.
However, the body only requires 500 mg (about half the weight of a small paper clip) of sodium per day to preserve these functions. That’s far less than the 3,400 mg per day that’s being consumed by the average American. The solution? Snack products made with a minimum amount of sodium that provide maximum salty taste. And that’s where the MicroSalt® ingredient comes in.
What makes MicroSalt® the perfect partner in sodium reduction? The MicroSalt® ingredient is a patented microparticle that can give snacks twice the salty flavor while adding only half the sodium of traditional crystals. This provides consumers with the flavor they crave while making manufacturers active participants in the health and well-being of their customers.
On the technical side, the MicroSalt® ingredient offers unparalleled product adhesion and flavor consistency making it perfect for topical applications necessary for many snack foods. It can also be added to your production process without expensive and time-consuming alterations to your existing equipment.
MicroSalt® vs. salt substitutes
The MicroSalt® ingredient is all-natural, gluten-free, and non-GMO. And it contains no problematic ingredients like potassium chloride or monosodium glutamate (MSG) that are often used as replacements for traditional salt. Both MSG and potassium chloride have been linked to harmful effects on consumer health, as well as bitter, metallic aftertastes.
Since MicroSalt® provides the familiar look and taste people love, it’s not just better than these suspect substitutes, it’s also superior to more exotic salts sometimes added to snack recipes. A list compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health shows how alternative salts, such as Himalayan pink and black salt, often don’t offer much in the way of sodium reduction.
Learn more about MicroSalt®
It’s our mission to help food manufacturers and salt-loving consumers become a healthier team. Everyone can win when you partner with us: the customer gets snacks that taste as salty as they need, while businesses do their part to protect public health – and save time and money in the process.
Our commitment to simplifying the low-sodium lifestyle made us the Global Winner of the P&G Alumni Network Star Entrepreneur Award for 2021 and the 2022 Sodium Reduction Technology Provider of the Year from Global Health & Pharma. Add in our partnership with health-conscious technical innovators like Envirostar, and you get a recipe for low-sodium success that we’d love to share with your company.
Call us at 877-825-0655 or connect via our message page to learn more about the MicroSalt® ingredient and our award-winning mission!
