Company: AAK

Website: aak.com

Ingredient Snapshot: AAK now offers a line of natural plant-based specialty lecithin emulsifier solutions that help improve nutrition, functionality, and processing of a wide variety of food and beverages. Akolec is AAK’s new specialty lecithin line, with all products sourced from sunflower oil and soybean oil. AAK lecithin helps manufacturers create healthier products with clean labels that consumers seek, offering a variety of grades from organic, non-GMO and PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tested options. These functional and nutritional ingredients provide manufacturers a variety of functional benefits to improve performance in a wide range of food and beverage applications such as bakery, nutrition, and confectionery, as well as plant-based dairy and plant-based meat products. AAK’s lecithin ingredients are available in liquid, powder, and fractionated forms, with options to create tailor-made solutions.

“We are excited to help our customer-partners achieve the ultimate solution in better-for-you foods with clean label, non-GMO ,and organic lecithin that is traceable and globally recognized as sustainable,” said Ryan Branch, senior marketing manager, AAK USA, Inc. “Natural lecithin plays a vital role in ingredient system success, as it provides nutrition along with essential functionality that manufacturers need as they simplify formulations. This allows manufacturers to remove negative-sounding chemical ingredients such as mono and diglycerides and offer a clean label to their market. The Akolec line of products offer an ideal solution as they improve overall product performance with benefits such as aiding even distribution of ingredients, stability, enhanced structure and much more.”

AAK’s Akolec brand of natural lecithin products is a consistent high-quality ingredient solution that helps manufacturers achieve better-for-you claims, while providing a variety of functional and nutritional benefits to improve overall product performance, including:

• Natural emulsifying and release agent
• Smooth texture
• Homogenization
• Longer shelf life
• Added nutritional values
• Easier handling
• Viscosity adjuster

“Akolec products offer functional and nutritional benefits for an unlimited number of applications,” said Branch. “For instance, in plant-based meat applications, lecithin can help you to achieve the needed functionality, without compromising on sustainability.”

“Akolec is an excellent source of choline, a nutrient that has been shown to enhance brain and liver performance,” said Branch. “Consumers are seeking healthier food and beverage options, and AAK will continue to find innovative solutions that meet their needs.”

Branch adds, “With more than 140 years’ experience innovating and customizing solutions with a wide range of multi-use plant-based fats and oils, we work together with our customers to ‘co-develop’ customized solutions, making the most of combined expertise to ideate and develop new products consumers will embrace. We have deep technical expertise and understand the functionality of lecithin in a variety of applications. Together, we can help fulfill consumer desire for better-for-you, clean label and sustainable solutions that look, function and taste great.”