From ready meals that delight with natural flavours, to sauces, vinaigrettes and dressings that add a little extra oomph to dishes, there’s never been a better – or more beneficial – time for food manufacturing brands to align their products with the changing needs of the consumer.

As food manufacturers begin to restart new product development and design new products that engage with shoppers, one of the significant areas of exploration is in oil blends and infusions.

An oil blend is the fusion of two carrier or flavoured oils, which involves culinary favourites such as Sunflower, Olive, Coconut or Rapeseed Oil. An infusion is slightly different – this entails a flavour component being stirred into a carrier oil, then filtered and decanted.

Essentially, blends and infusions are about taking tried and trusted cooking oils, such as Olive Oil, and adding distinctive new characteristics.

What makes the perfect oil blend?

The ideal oil blend builds flavour and aroma directly into a carrier oil, rather than both being self-held and siloed ingredients. At first glance, the core benefit appears to be in delivering new innovative concepts for greater appeal to the consumer, but the benefits run much deeper providing significant advantages for the food manufacturer too.

For the food manufacturing supply chain, it’s a job of plate-spinning. Food technologists are looking for new ways to wow the consumer while simultaneously driving efficiency, quality assurance and cost consolidation. However, by taking advantage of a partner like Kerfoot Group, with a dedicated blends laboratory and technology team, it doesn’t need to be an uphill task!

Oil blends and infusions provide opportunities for more creative NPD, where oils aren’t just a useful background component to recipes, they become a significant flavour carrier for the dish or product. For even greater flexibility, the specialist blends and infusions team at Kerfoot can support new product development from the ideation and concept stage in order to boost speed to market to capture share.

The company’s approach and partner mindset also mean product ranges can be extended quickly, easily and effectively, avoiding project lag, with scope for bespoke or exclusive blends.

Which blends and infusions are consumers loving?

The appeal of an oil blend is that it’s only limited by your imagination!

If your food product has a particular flavour or culture to invoke, take a distinctive flavour ingredient and infuse it with a functional plant-based oil to create an oil that can play multiple roles in the product.

What does this look like in practice? Popular pre-designed blends and infusions from Kerfoot include:

 

  • Chilli in Sunflower Oil
  • Garlic in Rapeseed Oil
  • BBQ infused Rapeseed Oil

 

Does your product or line have specific flavour or ingredient needs? Get in touch with the Kerfoot team today to discuss your projects and new product development.

Why choose an all-in-one blending service

Of course, as oil blends and infusions streamline NPD and range expansion, it makes sense for the development and implementation processes to be just as simple! Kerfoot has a team of technologists that develop pre-designed blends, as well as bespoke infusions, to match any purpose and application.

The service is designed to help brands bring ingredient suppliers into their new product development processes earlier than ever before, in order to achieve significant cost and efficiency gains further down the line. The bespoke blending service at Kerfoot can create not only tailored oil blends to fit a range of purposes and requirements, but also offers an expansive selection of off-the-shelf blends and infusions that can save customers time and handling costs.

One of the most significant operational benefits is that instead of having to procure and manage a new ingredient in the supply chain, Kerfoot handles it all as part of the service. The flavour is pre-blended into the oil, saving valuable capacity and cutting out unnecessary additional steps in the procurement and manufacturing processes.

The end result is a saving in time and money for the brand, by using Kerfoot’s own in-house capabilities and resources.

The service offered by Kerfoot removes needless complexity from the ingredient supply chain. Brands can source an ingredient such as lemongrass, basil or chilli, but are then independently manage the compliance, administration, logistics and storage of that component individually. Brands also need to incorporate it into their standard operating procedures, when the end product may only be running for a short period of time to hit a desired promotion or seasonal requirement.

In contrast, partnering with Kerfoot truly delivers an ‘all-in-one’ experience. The development team support and manage the potential complexity ahead of time and simply provide the oil blend or infusion ready to go, eradicating much of the cost and complexity downstream.

In Summary

There are significant gains to be made with an oil blend or infusion! Flavours that delight the consumer and turn a product into an experience are one benefit but manufacturing operational efficiency gains are another significant advantage!

What sets Kerfoot apart is its single-minded dedication to be the best ingredient partner in the food manufacturing sector. The team puts a strong focus on oil provenance, accountability and transparency, so Kerfoot customers can always be assured of honest, responsible and sustainable ingredient supply.

With a portfolio of over 500 oils and ingredients to the food, personal care and industrial sectors, discover the impressive range from Kerfoot. Each product in the range, and subsequently each partner along the supply chain, is carefully curated to capture the authenticity, quality and traceability that consumers love.

For more information on how Kerfoot can support your business, please contact us today on +44 (0) 1609 766790 or at info@kerfootgroup.co.uk.