Kerry has introduced Biobake Fresh Rich, an enzyme solution for sweet baked goods that delivers longer-lasting softness, freshness, and moistness perception over shelf life, while supporting food waste reduction.

This new, clean-label starch-acting enzyme enables sweet baked goods containing more than 20% sugar to remain fresher for a longer period of time, significantly reducing food waste. It is designed to create a softer, more consistent and more flexible crumb structure, with improved perceived moistness, enabling products to stay fresher for longer.

Baked goods are the largest category of food waste globally and, as such, extending their shelf life is an important means of waste reduction. Maintaining product quality over longer shelf life can contribute to a more sustainable future by reducing the likelihood of the bakery products being thrown away by consumers.

Commenting on the new baking product announcement, Deborah Waters, product director for Enzymes at Kerry, said: “Kerry’s new Biobake Fresh Rich is a proven performer, maintaining product freshness, softness and moistness in high-sugar content products like muffins, pancakes and pound cakes over longer shelf life. This delivers significant benefits in reducing food waste by making the supply chain more robust and improving the sustainability profiles of bakeries.”

“Our recent Kerry global consumer research conducted with 5,154 consumers in 10 countries confirmed enormous support around the world for reducing food waste through shelf-life extension. It found 98% of consumers are actively trying to reduce food waste, over 72% believe improving shelf life would help reduce waste and one-third would be willing to switch brand loyalties for a longer shelf life. Biobake Fresh Rich can help bakers address these important evolving consumer desires, all while allowing manufacturers to contribute to a more sustainable environment.”

Biobake Fresh Rich comes in a highly dispersible dry format and has a neutral taste. It is suitable for kosher, halal, vegetarian, and vegan product manufacture. In recent sensory trials versus a benchmark fresh-keeping enzyme over a 12-week shelf life, Biobake Fresh Rich significantly outperformed the benchmark in both softness and moistness perception.

Waters added: “Kerry offers a wide range of innovative enzyme technologies that can help industrial bakeries improve the efficiency and sustainability profiles of their product offerings. Extending shelf life is a strategy being used by many bakeries to increase product appeal with consumers, extend overall profits and reduce food waste. Biobake Fresh Rich is a versatile, clean-label solution that maintains freshness in sweet bakery applications over a longer shelf life, helping build brand loyalty.”

More details on Biobake Fresh Rich can be found here.