Taking Clarinol CLA to the mass market

Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) is an ingredient that has long been used in nutritional supplements to help reduce body fat and increase muscle mass. Now, with obesity becoming an increasingly important health issue, there’s never been a better time to start offering food products that also provide such body weight management benefits. There is just one challenge – making sure that this food that’s so “good for you” tastes great too.

Of all the ingredients aimed at optimizing body composition and weight maintenance, CLA is the best researched and documented. Studies by renowned institutes clearly confirm that it can play a role unrivalled by any other ingredient on the market today in producing desired results in terms of weight maintenance, improved muscle mass and body shaping. CLA is naturally present in the average human diet via foods such as milk, beef, cheese and yogurt, but at levels that are relatively low. Clinical human studies have shown that it’s possible to reduce weight and improve overall body composition simply by increasing the quantity of CLA in one’s diet.

Going mainstream
Clearly, this provides food manufacturers with a great new source of untapped market potential, given the growing public concern with weight, health and wellbeing. There are, however, some issues to address in order to create CLA-enhanced foods that will truly appeal to consumers. Until now, CLA has followed the same evolution as other functional ingredients. Initially, they are only available as supplements in specialized outlets, such as chemists and drugstores, and used by a small, dedicated group of highly health-conscious individuals. The next phase is integrating the ingredients into specialty products, such as nutritional bars and shakes. But only by going one step further and getting the ingredients into products on supermarket shelves is there true potential to reach a mass market and achieve large-volume sales.

This is the point at which CLA is now. Its well-documented benefits are sure to appeal not only to the highly health-conscious, but to the average consumer looking for easy ways to manage their weight and improve their overall wellbeing. CLA has been proven to do this, however the health benefits alone may not be enough for the large, general public to adopt a product. They also have to find it truly tasty and appealing. To achieve this, there are specific technical challenges and requirements that need to be overcome, but with the right knowledge and expertise, they can be. Lipid Nutrition, a division of Loders Croklaan, has been working with CLA since the early 1990s. The company’s research and activities have significantly contributed to what is known today about CLA and its application possibilities, and led to the development of the Clarinol™ products.

What to watch out for
According to Lipid Nutrition experts, by keeping a number of key factors in mind, it’s possible to integrate CLA into food in a way that will result in stable, tasty and appealing products. The first factor is that CLA, as a polyunsaturated fat, is sensitive to oxidation. This can have a significant and undesirable impact on taste, so it’s very important to avoid contact with oxidizing elements as much as possible during processing. The biggest culprit is oxygen, but other factors that can also lead to oxidation include light, exposure to high temperatures over an extended period of time, and contact with certain metals in either the equipment or water used during processing.

Dosage is also an issue. It’s important to know how much CLA can be included in a given product before its taste and mouthfeel are affected, and this can vary widely among different types of foods. Studies indicate that the optimal CLA dosage range for achieving the best results in terms of weight control, reduced fat mass and increased muscle mass is between 1.7 and 3.4 grams of active CLA isomers per day. Manufacturers have a choice as to how to offer the optimum daily dosage of CLA to customers. It can be integrated at relatively low dosages in a variety of products such as milk, cereals and margarine, so that daily consumption of all three will provide the ideal amount. The trend in functional food at the moment, however, is to offer the daily requirement of functional ingredients in one ‘single-shot’ serving.

Finding the perfect balance
When the concentration of the dosage is increased, ensuring that the product will be a stable and tasty one becomes more of a technical challenge. There are some foods where high concentrations simply will not work. CLA is, after all, essentially a fat. The effect of putting a high dosage in a fruit juice, for instance, would be something like mixing oil and water; the result would be a mouthfeel that would be unexpected, unfamiliar – and therefore, probably unpleasant – to the consumer.

Even in foods that naturally contain fat, higher dosages can increase the risk of small taste deviations that will need to be masked. By their very definition, mainstream products must appeal to mainstream tastes. Various joint research & development initiatives are providing new insights as to how to achieve this, as well as the means for doing so. Lipid Nutrition, for instance, is involved in a number of joint projects that are resulting in innovative techniques for giving Clarinol™ CLA-enhanced products the kind of taste that consumers expect and love. They’ve also discovered other, more novel, flavors that could work very well when used in certain types of foods.

The shape of things to come
As more and more manufacturers look to integrate CLA into food products, there is one other challenge: getting a good analysis in the development and testing phase to ensure the product will provide the desired results and health benefits. Analyzing the amount of active CLA isomers in a food product after processing requires just as much care as integrating it in the first place. Special techniques are necessary for different types of food in order to extract CLA without damaging or otherwise compromising it, making accurate analysis impossible. Lipid Nutrition has made great progress in this area as well, and offers its laboratory expertise to customers who want to make sure consumers will indeed get the promised benefits from their products.

In short, although there can be obstacles to offering mainstream food products that provide all the benefits of Clarinol™ CLA, the parameters for optimal integration have been clearly defined. The necessary techniques and tools for doing so also continue to be perfected, and manufacturers are now starting to take advantage of the new possibilities this offers. For consumers who want to improve their health and wellbeing, these kinds of enhanced products may well be the shape of things to come.

Lipid Nutrition and Clarinol™ CLA
Lipid Nutrition, a division of Loders Croklaan, markets scientifically sound, natural, lipid ingredients which improve and maintain health and wellbeing. The company also provides expert advice and assistance regarding the application, processing, laboratory analysis, marketing and legislation of functional ingredients and their products. This makes it possible for customers to get the most of the market possibilities and potential that functional ingredients offer.

Clarinol™ CLA oils and powders in the Lipid Nutrition range offer the highest and purest concentration of the beneficial active isomers (c9,t11 and t10,c12) of any CLA product on the market today. Clarinol™ CLA was the first to be granted self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) for food products, and can be used in a wide variety of applications. These include dairy products, margarine spreads, salad dressings, baked goods, and frozen or shelf-stable plate meals containing meat, fish or poultry.