Producing High Quality Mayonnaise – How Hard Can It Be?

Mayonnaise is a diverse sauce most commonly used in sandwiches and burgers, as the creamy base in cold salads, or as a dip for French fries. Consumer preferences for taste, texture and appearance varies considerably across each eating occasion, and from country to country.

As a result, there are numerous variants in production and a web of local codes for naming, labelling and formulation. This, coupled with the ever-changing consumer preferences for taste and consistency, means considerable challenges for mayonnaise producers. Being able to accurately predict and control the required quality parameters is of utmost importance, as this allows optimiszation of production costs, trouble free production scale-up and, not least, rapid development and shorter time-to-market for new products.

Current trends cause increased fragmentation

The current preferences impacting the world of mayonnaise include the following:

• Health and wellness focus – Consumers want to live healthily and feel good, there is heightened demand for reduced fat, salt and sugar content in our food and drink

• Natural ingredients – consumers are increasingly concerned about what is in their food, how it is made and where the ingredients come from.

• Premium experience – many consumers are on the lookout for products with the highest quality ingredients

• Free-From – more consumers are avoiding certain foods due to allergies, sensitivities or as a lifestyle choice

• Convenience – time-saving and highquality products, easy to prepare and consume on-the-go are ever more popular