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Improving fish, meat flavor
By Helen Hu Ying, Regional Marketing Manager, Novozymes, Food & Nutrition (Asia)
Enzymes can convert co-products into valuable food ingredients.
1 March 2008
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A good and flavorful soup or sauce is based on good stock; and good stock is made by cooking leftover meat bones and meat. A good cook knows this. However, meat and fish processing plants around the world discard fresh meaty bones and fish carcasses that are of food-grade quality. Ironically, meat and fish processing plants also purchase expensive proteins and flavors to add to their products—proteins and flavors that are locked in the discarded co-products.
In the past years, a significant increase in food production has led to a rise in co-products and waste. Disposal by incineration or landfill is neither cost effective nor environmentally sound. Therefore, it is important to introduce technology that can maximize the value of co-products and reduce the quantity of waste produced in the first place.
During fish processing only the fillets are retained, so the bulk of the product, about 60-70 percent, is discarded. Some of this fish waste is sold as low-value animal feed, but most of it is dumped into a landfill at a cost. Slaughterhouses also produce large amounts of co-products, which include trimmings, bone, and bone cake that have very little value. Deemed as biodegradable waste, these co-products are sometimes used as animal feed, but are mostly thrown away.
In several traditional restaurants, a large pot is kept on the boil to which the chef adds all the bones and irregular cuts of meat. This stock forms the base from which the chef prepares sauces and meat soups. In the small scale of a restaurant, this process works well, but on an industrial scale, enzymes come in handy.
Enzymatic protein hydrolysis unlocks the value of slaughterhouse and fish processing co-products by turning them into high-quality valuable food ingredients—meat protein extract (MPE) and fish protein extract (FPE)—which can be used to enhance the flavor of processed-meat products or be simply used as flavorful stock. Enzymatic processing involves the use of various proteases to break down or hydrolyze the peptide bonds in the protein molecule. This helps remove the meat and fish proteins from the bones and process them as MPE and FPE.
In fish processing, fish and seafood protein extracts (FPE) consist of a flavorsome broth, a high-quality fish oil fraction, and a clean-bone fraction that is suitable for gelatin processing. Frozen fish fillets containing FPE have no thawing loss and have better color preservation in some fish like salmon and trout even after thawing. Smoked oil-rich fish like salmon and trout increase their weight when injected with FPE.
Endoproteases such as Novozymes' Protamex are introduced in the waste processing to hydrolyze the co-products, resulting in seafood extract, oil fraction rich in eicosapentanoicacid (EPA) and docosahexaenoicacid (DHA), high-protein sediment that can be used as animal feed, and clean bones that are ideal for making gelatin. And since FPE increases the volume of processed-fish products, proteases increase yield as well as flavor. A unique combination of endoproteases and exoproteases like Novozymes’ Flavourzyme is added to the seafood extract to hydrolyze it again and significantly improve the savory flavor.
Processed meat injected with MPE offers a variety of benefits, including better sliceability, better microbial control, increased tenderness, and more intense and better flavor. MPE also offers other benefits as it can replace milk and soy protein, which are sometimes injected in processed meat to replace a portion of salt-soluble meat proteins, bind fat and water, stabilize emulsions, and ensure cohesiveness in finished cooked products. By using MPE instead of soy or milk products, manufacturers are able to have fewer non-meat ingredients on their label while achieving the same results.
The use of MPE leads to less loss of volume during thawing and cooking of meat products. The addition of MPE to the brine or marinade makes it possible to pasteurize the brine during recirculation to the multi-needle injector. MPE also reduces slicing loss as well as increases tenderness in a variety of processed meat products like pork ham and turkey breast.
Protein hydrolysis in meat co-product processing is achieved with proteases that create a protein hydrosylate or MPE. A second reaction in which the flavor is intensified even more can be performed in the fat-free protein hydrolysate by adding Flavourzyme for flavor enhancement.
With increasing concerns about climate change and food sustainability, it is in the best interest of the world for meat and fish producers to rely on enzymatic protein hydrolysis to maximize the value of meat and fish waste and their profits. A cost-effective technology that reuses co-products to improve the flavor and yield, and thus the value the final product, the use of enzymes to process waste is an application that is set to grow in the future.
In the past years, a significant increase in food production has led to a rise in co-products and waste. Disposal by incineration or landfill is neither cost effective nor environmentally sound. Therefore, it is important to introduce technology that can maximize the value of co-products and reduce the quantity of waste produced in the first place.
During fish processing only the fillets are retained, so the bulk of the product, about 60-70 percent, is discarded. Some of this fish waste is sold as low-value animal feed, but most of it is dumped into a landfill at a cost. Slaughterhouses also produce large amounts of co-products, which include trimmings, bone, and bone cake that have very little value. Deemed as biodegradable waste, these co-products are sometimes used as animal feed, but are mostly thrown away.
In several traditional restaurants, a large pot is kept on the boil to which the chef adds all the bones and irregular cuts of meat. This stock forms the base from which the chef prepares sauces and meat soups. In the small scale of a restaurant, this process works well, but on an industrial scale, enzymes come in handy.
Enzymatic protein hydrolysis unlocks the value of slaughterhouse and fish processing co-products by turning them into high-quality valuable food ingredients—meat protein extract (MPE) and fish protein extract (FPE)—which can be used to enhance the flavor of processed-meat products or be simply used as flavorful stock. Enzymatic processing involves the use of various proteases to break down or hydrolyze the peptide bonds in the protein molecule. This helps remove the meat and fish proteins from the bones and process them as MPE and FPE.
In fish processing, fish and seafood protein extracts (FPE) consist of a flavorsome broth, a high-quality fish oil fraction, and a clean-bone fraction that is suitable for gelatin processing. Frozen fish fillets containing FPE have no thawing loss and have better color preservation in some fish like salmon and trout even after thawing. Smoked oil-rich fish like salmon and trout increase their weight when injected with FPE.
Endoproteases such as Novozymes' Protamex are introduced in the waste processing to hydrolyze the co-products, resulting in seafood extract, oil fraction rich in eicosapentanoicacid (EPA) and docosahexaenoicacid (DHA), high-protein sediment that can be used as animal feed, and clean bones that are ideal for making gelatin. And since FPE increases the volume of processed-fish products, proteases increase yield as well as flavor. A unique combination of endoproteases and exoproteases like Novozymes’ Flavourzyme is added to the seafood extract to hydrolyze it again and significantly improve the savory flavor.
Processed meat injected with MPE offers a variety of benefits, including better sliceability, better microbial control, increased tenderness, and more intense and better flavor. MPE also offers other benefits as it can replace milk and soy protein, which are sometimes injected in processed meat to replace a portion of salt-soluble meat proteins, bind fat and water, stabilize emulsions, and ensure cohesiveness in finished cooked products. By using MPE instead of soy or milk products, manufacturers are able to have fewer non-meat ingredients on their label while achieving the same results.
The use of MPE leads to less loss of volume during thawing and cooking of meat products. The addition of MPE to the brine or marinade makes it possible to pasteurize the brine during recirculation to the multi-needle injector. MPE also reduces slicing loss as well as increases tenderness in a variety of processed meat products like pork ham and turkey breast.
Protein hydrolysis in meat co-product processing is achieved with proteases that create a protein hydrosylate or MPE. A second reaction in which the flavor is intensified even more can be performed in the fat-free protein hydrolysate by adding Flavourzyme for flavor enhancement.
With increasing concerns about climate change and food sustainability, it is in the best interest of the world for meat and fish producers to rely on enzymatic protein hydrolysis to maximize the value of meat and fish waste and their profits. A cost-effective technology that reuses co-products to improve the flavor and yield, and thus the value the final product, the use of enzymes to process waste is an application that is set to grow in the future.
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