Foods and Beverage Products Nutritional Analysis
Introduction
Nutritional analysis assists you in gathering the data you’ll need to develop your product’s nutrition label. Almost all countries require dietary labels or nutrition facts labels, and in the United States, the FDA governs all these activities. Consumers can make more educated food and beverage choices if nutritional information is transparent and reliable.
Methods For Nutritional Value Testing
There are two methods for nutritional value testing. The first is to look up the nutritional values of your components in a database. The overall nutritional value of your final product is then calculated using your recipe or formulation, as well as information regarding processing losses or gains. Depending on your raw materials and manufacturing procedures, this process might be time-consuming and challenging.
The second nutritional analysis testing for determining the nutritional content of food and beverage products is to do physical testing in a laboratory.
The objective of both techniques is to acquire precise nutritional data so that you and your clients may make informed decisions based on actual nutrient content.
Nutritional Analysis and Testing Errors
One of the most common mistakes we find is when it comes to counting carbohydrates. Carbs can’t be measured directly. It’s a computation based on the amount of protein ash in your beverage’s actual extract.For example, seltzers differ in protein and ash from beer, you can’t use the usual factors for beer to calculate your seltzer readings.
When it comes to beverage nutritional analysis, probiotic drinks might be more difficult. Probiotic beverages, like hard seltzer, are fermented. Because fermentation might vary, you should expect your nutritional content to differ as well.
Contract Testing Labs
Creative entrepreneurs frequently experiment with novel and inventive ingredients that aren’t currently in a database. Certain products have so many components that getting nutritional information from the maker might be problematic in other situations. Nutritional testing may assist brands in obtaining reliable data without having to go into the documentation or do complex calculations that databases need.
Nutritional testing for special dietary requirements should be accurate and derivable. Testing is the most reliable method of obtaining precise dietary information for such items.
The FDA Nutrition Panel
The FDA nutrition panel is a legal, regulated document in the United States. Therefore brands must verify that it is correct. The FDA has the authority to remove your product from the market at any moment and test it for accuracy and regulatory compliance. The correctness of your FDA nutrition panel is critical for preventing recalls and additional expenses, as well as maintaining customer confidence in your product’s quality. If a concern regarding your nutrition panel arises, you’ll want to have all of your paperwork in order and up to date.
Optimum Time For Nutritional Testing
The optimum time to send you’re your sample to a nutritional value testing laboratory is after you’ve developed a commercial recipe but before you’re ready to put your product on shop shelves.
Your initial formula will most likely alter as you finalise product specifics such as packaging and preservation technique. If your ingredients or suppliers change, you’ll need to pay another round of testing to verify your nutritional data. It is advised that you order a healthy test only after you have completed all of your product specifications to prevent unnecessary expenses and delays.
When developing a mock-up of your label during the product development process, you may save money by leveraging the nutrition database facts and calculations. When you’re ready to put your product in front of customers, you should invest in a verified nutrition information panel.
Because nutritional testing takes two to three weeks, you’ll want to allow yourself plenty of time to create accurate labelling. On a trial basis, some persons will do nutrient testing. They’ll be able to prepare their labels ahead of time. It’s critical to give yourself enough time to complete nutritional testing before you require labels and artwork, as well as all of the other procedures.
Conclusion
Prepare your commercial recipe and keep track of the time and perform proper food shelf life testing. Nutritional testing will take around two to three weeks to complete, so plan accordingly. Make sure your techniques are specific to your products. Be careful of what you’re adding to your formulation process and how it may influence your nutrition panel when doing anything with the process. If you add potassium, a yeast nutrient, for example, your nutrition panel will change.
Food Research Lab Provides Nutrition Testing Services
Food Research Lab offers an experienced team of nutritionists, food scientists, and technologists that work with food and beverage companies to design, regulate, and validate healthy meals and health claims. We also have linked up with nutrition testing companies across the globe for precise calculations. We are fully skilled to assist you with all fundamentals of nutritional strategy, including the Glycemic Index (GI), weight control and satiety studies, and nutritional science.
Reference
- Omaye, S. T. (2004). Food and nutritional toxicology. CRC press.
- Meade, S. J., Reid, E. A., & Gerrard, J. A. (2005). The impact of processing on the nutritional quality of food proteins. Journal of AOAC International
- Tano-Debrah, K., Saalia, F. K., Ghosh, S., & Hara, M. (2019). Development and Sensory Shelf-Life Testing of KOKO Plus: A Food Supplement for Improving the Nutritional Profiles of Traditional Complementary Foods. Food and nutrition bulletin