The Umami Flavor in the Food Industry

Umami flavor is considered the fifth basic taste, alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. It derives from the Japanese term umai (delicious). It is characterized by a smooth, long-lasting, and complex taste sensation capable of enhancing the flavor of foods and producing a perception of fullness in the mouth.

From a chemical point of view, umami is associated with the presence of certain compounds, especially glutamate, the nucleotides inosinate and guanylate, and some peptides. These compounds act on specific receptors on the tongue and produce the characteristic umami perception.

Monosodium glutamate (E-621) is the main compound responsible for the umami taste. It is a salt of glutamic acid, an amino acid widely distributed in nature. In the food industry, it is used as a flavor enhancer in savory foods, particularly those high in protein or fermented.

It offers numerous advantages. It is an economical ingredient, effective at low doses (typically between 0.5 and 5 g/kg), enhances the original flavor of the food without significantly altering it, is stable under heat and acidity, and exhibits a synergistic effect with many ingredients, especially nucleotides and peptides.

Although scientific evidence has not found that this additive poses health risks, there is a negative perception among certain sectors of the public. This rejection, though lacking scientific basis, has encouraged a trend toward natural alternatives that allow for clean labeling, free from the unjustly demonized E-numbers.

Glutamate plays an important role in the meat, fish-derived products, ready meals, broths, sauces, and pickled food industries. Skeletal muscle and other protein-rich tissues have an abundant reserve of glutamic acid, which explains why raw materials high in protein —common in the industries mentioned above— naturally express a strong intrinsic umami character.

In raw proteins, this glutamate is mostly incorporated within peptide chains. However, during typical food processing steps, it is released in the form of glutamic acid and contributes to the characteristic umami taste of the product. These protein-lysis processes can be thermal (cooking, pasteurization), enzymatic, or fermentative.

To obtain and reinforce the characteristic umami flavor of a food, ingredients naturally rich in glutamate can be added, such as tomatoes, mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms, kombu, wakame or nori seaweeds, or natural fermented products like soy sauce, miso, or yeast extract. These ingredients, however, may not always be suitable for the food whose flavor we want to enhance, due to their color, appearance, or texture. It also frequently happens that they introduce an undesirable flavor into the product.

At APASA, we have developed natural extracts that enhance flavor at low doses without producing organoleptic deviations in the food to which they are applied. Their profile fits well with the product categories mentioned above. They can be used in a wide range of foods with the same advantages offered by monosodium glutamate, but with a clean label as a natural flavoring.

They are an effective tool for the food industry, enabling the formulation of natural products that meet the technological demands of manufacturers, the expectations of consumers, and the market trend toward more natural products.

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