Chocolate and cocoa supply giant Barry Callebaut has announced plans to strengthen its offering of healthier confectionary alternatives, with plans to reduce saturated and hydrogenated fats, and practically eliminate the use of trans-fatty acids.

The company, which supplies many of the world’s largest food companies with their confectionary raw materials and ingredients, said that it was developing healthier confectionary applications in response to growing demand for products with lower saturated fat levels, and in anticipation of future regulatory measures.

Hans Vriens, Chief Innovation Officer of Barry Callebaut: “Developing healthier alternatives for standard confectionery products is part of our innovation strategy. That is why we consistently work to reduce saturated and hydrogenated fat usage and try to eliminate trans-fats altogether. This is because we know that more and more confectionery consumers around the world are calling for precisely these kinds of developments. As a result, Barry Callebaut is ready for the future and can provide “healthier alternative” solutions for a wide variety of applications, not only for the confectionery and biscuit industry, but also for ice-cream and bakery applications.”

Barry Callebaut said that over the past few years, it has been taking major steps to dramatically reduce the use of hardened (hydrogenated) fats in its confectionery fillings and coatings, while still maintaining the high standards of taste and quality for which the company is renowned.

“To put this reduction in perspective, the hydrogenated fat content of Barry Callebaut products has been reduced from 47% to 20% in just 8 years. Barry Callebaut has also drastically reduced the trans-fatty-acid content of all vegetable oils in use since 2002 (from 6.1% to 1.3%). As a result, practically all trans-fatty-acids have been eliminated from the vast majority of products.”

“As a result of these measures, Barry Callebaut is now able to offer an extensive portfolio of products that are reduced in both saturated fats and trans-fatty acids. Examples include Barry Callebaut’s Tintoretto fillings for confectionery products with significantly reduced saturated fat content and without hydrogenated fats. Other examples include several bakery fillings with saturated fat levels below 10% and the bakestable barquette and pancake fillings range
with less than 5% saturated fat.”

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