With food manufacturers ramping up production and consumers looking for healthy products with longer shelf life, having a consistent ingredient supply, including healthy fats and oils, is important for your business. Mid and high oleic USA-refined sunflower oils are available to meet the demands of increased production, and these oils may soon be able to make a "healthy" claim.
What is the new "healthy" claim?
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS) has published a notice in the Federal Register that will allow the "healthy" claim on labels, if the product has a fat profile of predominantly mono and polyunsaturated fats. Both mid and high oleic sunflower oil are high in monounsaturated fats, contain some polyunsaturated fats and are low in saturated fats.
Depending on the other ingredients that you are using to manufacture your products, sunflower oil's nutrient profile may assist you in leveraging this claim.
What about longer shelf life?
Whether you are making snack foods, sauces or marinades, prepared foods, or bakery items, extending the shelf life of your products has always been top of mind. And nowadays, with consumers looking for products to stock their pantry and to reduce the number of trips they have to make to the grocery store, longer shelf life has never been more important. Research has shown that sunflower oil has a longer shelf life than many other oils. Since sunflower oil contains only a trace of Omega 3 polyunsaturated fat, it doesn't break down as quickly as other oils. In addition, most refined sunflower oil contains natural antioxidants, which are proven to be just as effective in maintaining stability as previous synthetic options.
Will there be a consistent supply of sunflower oil in the future?
At the end of March, the USDA released planting projections for oil-type sunflowers and the forecast projects that sunflower producers intend to plant 1.36 million acres of oil type sunflowers — an increase of 13% over 2019. This projected increase should reassure food processors that a consistent supply of sunflower oil will help meet their increased production demand.
Consumers want products made with sunflower oil
USA sunflower oil is non-GMO and is also certified for use in Kosher and Halal products. Its light neutral taste makes it an optimal choice for food manufacturers, since it doesn't interfere with other flavours in the food. Consumer perception of sunflower oil is very positive. In fact, in a recent survey, 82% of consumers said they believe sunflower oil is a healthy oil1 and 71% indicated that they are interested in purchasing foods made with sunflower oil.2
If you are interested in obtaining samples or a price quote, contact a sunflower oil supplier or contact the National Sunflower Association at: 701-328-5100.
- Omnibus survey conducted by Maru/Blue Research with 1,500 consumers on October 30, 2019.
- Omnibus survey conducted by Maru/Blue Research with 1,500 consumers on October. 22, 2018.
