Kerry officially launches non-GMO yeast as natural solution for acrylamide reduction

Acrylamide is fast becoming a big concern for the food industry, due to the growing body of evidence of its role as a potential carcinogen. Acryleast™ is a new, fully non-GMO, solution for acrylamide reduction brought to market from  by Kerry, in partnership with Renaissance BioScience. It is a clean-label, non-GMO yeast, rich in asparaginase enzyme, which has the ability to reduce acrylamide levels by up to 90 per cent across a broad range of food and beverage products, including biscuits, crackers, French fries, potato crisps, coffee and infant food.

Governments all over the world are starting to pay attention to acrylamide and are implementing new regulations, which include setting benchmark levels (European Union) and requiring warning signs placed on foods and beverages that contain acrylamide (California Proposition 65).

Matthew May, Kerry’s bakery lead for Europe and Russiasaid, “Across our entire taste and nutrition portfolio, we are keen to ensure that the functionality of our ingredients is reliable and consistent. On this basis, we repeatedlytested Acryleast’s effectiveness in reducing acrylamide levels across a range of biscuit and cracker applications.” May said this involved testing in Kerry’s laboratories and in scaled-up plant trials, where reductions of greater than 90 per cent were achieved. Most importantly, he said, the trials also demonstrated no impact on taste or texture, confirming that Acryleast is a very effective and versatile solution for acrylamide reduction, that requires no or minimal changes to existing manufacturing processes.

Mike Woulfe, vice president, business development enzymes at Kerrysaid it was essential to the company to launch “a solution that was clean label and non-GMO so that both producers and consumers could trust that acrylamide was being reduced consistently, and in the right way.”

He said Kerry is “delighted” to partner with Renaissance, an innovative life science company. “Their non-GMO approach to acrylamide reduction fits very well with our clean-label strategy. Our extensive laboratory and sensory analyses have demonstrated that foods produced using Acryleast are comparable in appearance, aroma, flavour and texture to those produced without Acryleast.” He said Acryleast is a versatile solution that offers manufacturers an acrylamide reduction strategy that is much more effective than alternative approaches, which require them to fundamentally change their process e.g. lowering temperatures, processing time or changing raw ingredients.“

Kerry has initially focused Acryleast application analysis in the categories of baked goods, however this is being expanded to snacks, processed potatoes and other categories, as the market for non-GMO acrylamide reduction solutions continues to gain traction.

Kerry is rolling out Acryleast globally beginning January 29, 2019 (with the exception of 11 markets in the Nordic and Eastern European markets, where Orkla Food Ingredients has a licensing agreement with Renaissance BioScience Corp.) Further information can be found on Kerry.com.