US: Senomyx's Fake Flavors

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US: Senomyx's Fake Flavors

 

 

by By Melanie Warner, New York Times

April 6th, 2005

 

 

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12053

 

Several big food and beverage companies are looking at a new

ingredient in the battle for health-conscious consumers: a chemical

that tricks the taste buds into sensing sugar or salt even when it

is not there.

 

Kraft Foods, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Campbell Soup are all working

with a biotechnology company called Senomyx, which has developed

several chemicals, most of which do not have any flavor of their own

but instead work by activating or blocking receptors in the mouth

that are responsible for taste. They can enhance or replicate the

taste of sugar, salt and monosodium glutamate, or MSG, in foods.

 

By adding one of Senomyx's flavorings to their products,

manufacturers can, for instance, reduce the sugar in a cookie or

salt in a can of soup by one-third to one-half while retaining the

same sweetness or saltiness.

 

Now, for instance, a 10 3/4-ounce can of Campbell's Home-style

chicken soup, which the company says contains two and a half

servings, has more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium.

That would

probably be cut to a little over 1,500 milligrams when the chemical

is added. (The government recommends consumption of no more than

2,400 milligrams of sodium a day.)

 

Unlike artificial sweeteners, Senomyx's chemical compounds will not

be listed separately on ingredient labels. Instead, they will be

lumped into a broad category - " artificial flavors " - already found

on most packaged food labels.

 

" We're helping companies clean up their labels, " said Senomyx's

chief executive, Kent Snyder.

 

Senomyx, based in San Diego, uses many of the same research

techniques that biotechnology companies apply in devising new drugs.

Executives say that a taste receptor or family of receptors on the

tongue or in the mouth are responsible for recognizing a taste.

 

Using the human genome sequence, the company says, it has identified

hundreds of those taste receptors. Its chemical compounds activate

the receptors in a way that accentuates the taste of sugar or salt.

 

It is still experimenting to determine the most potent compounds,

its chief scientist, Mark Zoller, said.

 

While food safety experts applaud efforts to reduce salt, MSG and

sugar, they expressed concerns about the new chemicals, saying that

more testing needed to be done before these were sold in food.

 

But Senomyx maintains that its new products are safe because they

will be used in tiny quantities.

 

Kraft, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Campbell Soup have contracted with

Senomyx for exclusive rights to use the ingredients in certain types

of food and beverages, although the companies declined to identify

those categories.

 

Elise Wang, an analyst at Smith Barney, said that Kraft was planning

to use Senomyx's sweet flavoring to reduce the sugar in powdered

beverages like Kool-Aid by one-third. Campbell Soup, she said, is

looking at cutting sodium levels by a third with the salt flavoring.

 

" There's applicability for our soups, sauces and drinks like V8, " a

spokesman for Campbell, John Faulkner, said.

 

A Kraft spokesman declined to offer specifics on the company's

relationship with Senomyx, but said that Kraft was committed to

reducing the sugar and salt levels in many products. Nestlé and Coke

also declined to comment.

 

Senomyx's salt enhancer, in particular, has the potential to be a

boon to the food industry. For years, corporate scientists have been

looking in vain for ways to reduce sodium levels in packaged food

without losing flavor.

 

" It's a real challenge, " said Christine M. Homsey, senior research

food scientist at Food Perspectives, a consulting firm in Plymouth,

Minn. " Nobody's come up with anything even close to ideal. "

 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group

based in Washington, is seeking to get the Food and Drug

Administration to pay more attention to the high sodium levels in

packaged foods.

 

In February, it filed a lawsuit seeking to force the

F.D.A. to regulate salt as a food additive. The effort, if

successful, could spur companies to limit salt in their products.

 

Mr. Synder said that Senomyx's salt enhancers were still in the

development phase and would not appear in foods for at least two

years. The company's most advanced product, he said, is its

replacement for MSG, which last month received safety approval from

the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association. He expects food

items with this product to appear in supermarkets sometime in the

first half of next year.

 

While doctors and consumers have recognized the dangers of too much

salt and sugar, MSG is not as well understood as a potentially

harmful food additive. Used as a flavor enhancer, it is found in

flavored chips, sauces, dry soups and meat products.

 

According to Sara Risch, a food scientist and professor at Michigan

State University, food companies are eager to find replacements for

MSG because some people are allergic to high levels of it.

 

" There's a negative consumer perception held by some people

regarding MSG, " said Mr. Snyder, who came out of retirement in 2003

to become Senomyx's chief executive. " Some school districts, for

instance, won't sell MSG-containing snacks. "

 

In the 1970's, after it was shown to induce brain lesions and

nervous system disorders in laboratory animals, baby food

manufacturers removed it from their products.

 

Mr. Zoller, the company's chief scientist, said the replacement for

MSG could also be used in place of common flavor enhancers like

hydrolyzed vegetable protein and autolyzed yeast extract.

 

These

ingredients have been closely linked to MSG because they contain

high levels of glutamic acid, the main component of MSG.

 

Since Senomyx's flavor compounds will be used in small proportions

(less than one part per million), the company is able to bypass the

lengthy F.D.A. approval process required to get food additives on

the market. Getting the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association

status of generally recognized as safe, or GRAS, took Senomyx less

than 18 months, including a 3-month safety study using rats.

In

contrast, the maker of the artificial sweetener sucralose spent 11

years winning F.D.A. approval and is required to list the ingredient

on food labels.

 

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in

the Public Interest, endorsed Senomyx's ability to reduce salt,

sugar and MSG, but cautioned against a new chemical entering the

food supply without rigorous testing.

 

" A three-month study is

completely inadequate, " he said. " What you want is at least a two-

year study on several species of animals. "

 

Senomyx responded that in contrast to artificial sweeteners, which

are used at levels of 200 to 500 parts per million, its flavorings

would be added in such small quantities that they would pose no

safety risk. These low-use levels are also what allow Senomyx's

chemicals to be classified as artificial flavors.

 

According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission,

Kraft Foods, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Campbell Soup have collectively

paid Senomyx $30 million to finance research and development. When

the flavorings are incorporated into foods, Senomyx has said it will

collect royalties of 1 percent to 4 percent of a product's sales.

 

Although the company is several years away from turning a profit,

its stock price has nearly doubled since it went public last June,

closing yesterday at $11.91. Last fiscal year, Senomyx lost $19.7

million on research revenue of $8.3 million. Ms. Wang of Smith

Barney has projected that royalties from food product sales will be

$50 million in 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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