From ready meals to on-the-go snacks, convenience food has become a regular part of daily life. Globally, more than 3 in 5 consumers (60%) consume convenience or ready-to-eat foods at least once a week, while one in five choose them more than once a day.

Against this backdrop, in the UK, nine in 10 consumers eat ready meals, with more than half of households regularly purchasing pre-prepared convenience food, making the country one of the highest consumers of convenience food in Europe.

However, with consumers now becoming increasingly health-conscious too, their expectations are changing. Consumers are looking for products that are not only quick and convenient, but also aligned with their health goals, from high-protein and plant-based options to lower-sodium meals.

This creates a new challenge for manufacturers: making healthier convenience foods that still deliver on taste. While nutritional credentials may encourage consumers to buy, taste can determine whether they come back for more, putting pressure on brands to deliver distinctive, indulgent flavours in convenient, shelf-stable meals.

Why taste is becoming the biggest challenge for healthier convenience foods

Consumers are increasingly looking for meals that offer both convenience and nutritional value, with protein and fibre fortification, sodium reduction and plant-based products becoming key focus areas.

However, meeting these nutritional demands can create new challenges around flavour, texture, and overall eating experience. Healthier reformulations can leave products tasting dry, bland, and lacking the depth consumers expect, while plant-based products can introduce off-notes.

The challenge of sodium reduction

Sodium reduction is becoming an increasingly important consideration for food manufacturers as consumers and public health organisations place greater focus on reducing sodium intake. The World Health Organisation recommends that adults consume less than 2,000mg of sodium per day, equivalent to less than 5g of salt.

However, simply reducing salt can leave foods lacking the flavour consumers expect. Sodium plays an important role in flavour perception and can help enhance the characteristics of other ingredients, making it difficult to adjust the quantity without affecting the overall taste.

For manufacturers, the challenge is finding ways to reduce sodium while maintaining the rich, savoury flavour consumers expect. Yeast-based taste modulation solutions help brands reformulate products without compromising on flavour. As well as masking bitter and metallic off-notes of Potassium chloride, these solutions bring upfront salinity back and balance overall savoury flavour, not only reducing the salt but balancing the sensory profile.

Building better flavour into plant-based foods

The demand for meat-free convenience foods is also pushing manufacturers to develop everyday meals around plant-based proteins instead.

Replacing meat with plant-based proteins can make it hard to create the rich, savoury characteristics that meat would usually deliver in familiar meals. Plant-based proteins also lack the juiciness and umami that help make traditional meals feel satisfying plus they can sometimes introduce bitter or beany off-notes.

Manufacturers therefore need to consider how they can introduce meaty notes to replicate the savoury umami taste that consumers associate with meat dishes while masking any undesirable off-notes and building depth and complexity to drive consumer satisfaction.

Yeast-based ingredients provide a solution to taste and health

Naturally rich in glutamic acid and nucleotides, yeast-based ingredients provide umami and savoury flavours that can help enhance the overall taste profile of a product. They can bring out and balance existing flavours, while also helping to round out flavour combinations.

This can be particularly useful when reducing sodium by:

• Delivering upfront salinity to enhance saltiness perception and balance savoury flavours, helping maintain the overall taste experience whilst reducing the need for salt.
• Bringing out existing natural flavours and modulating tastes to develop richness in better-for-you products.
• Masking off-notes from sodium chloride replacements such as potassium chloride.

They are equally valuable in plant-based dishes, for:

• Helping to deliver the savoury character and roasted notes of authentic meaty flavours.
• Giving products that juicy, fatty mouthfeel of meat, which can be so hard to replicate in plant-based meals.
• The natural umami flavour will also serve to mask any off-notes introduced by the plant protein.

Daria Pashkova, marketing manager at Ohly, says: “Consumers shouldn’t have to choose between food that’s good for them and food that tastes nice. As consumers become more interested in the nutritional content of meals, manufacturers have an opportunity to rethink what better-for-you really means.

“Ready meals, in particular, need to offer more than convenience. They need to be something consumers eat for enjoyment or indulgence, with the flavours, depth and complexity they would expect in a meal prepared from scratch.

“Ultimately, manufacturers need to bring together nutrition, convenience, and enjoyment. Flavour innovation will be essential to this: making healthier choices just as appealing as the familiar meals consumers already know and love.”