The Kokumi Meaning

Kokumi is a Japanese word, and the world is created to describe the complex, richness, mouthful, and long-lasting sense when the soup is stewed for a long-time, the wine aged for years, or cheese which had been mature.

What is the relationship between Kokumi and Umami, and what is the difference?

You can consider the Kokumi sense based on umami, plus the substance provides the feeling of mouthfulness, long-lasting, and complexity.

The typical kokumi providing substances is already insisted in nature food, like yeast, garlic, scallops, onion, fish sauce, soy sauce, shrimp paste.
The typical kokumi substances are not really tasty on their own. Such as γ-glutamyl or γ-leucyl dipeptides or Tripeptide, Two famous peptides are Glutathione which is Glu-Cys-Gly, and γ-EVG, which is gamma-Glu-Val-Gly
People could taste kokumi sense by combining the umami and kokumi substance. The word of monthfulness is the keyword to understand kokumi, which means full-body and delighted of umami fill of your mouth. And with the kokumi sense, the umami could stay longer. And also the kokumi and improve the intensity of umami.
While without the Kokumi substance, the umami is plain and gone very quick, not satisfactory enough.

What is the benefit of Kokumi in the food industry?

Rather than call Kokumi the sixth flavor, it is better to consider the kokumi sense as a flavor modifier that does not amplify the taste of the food. Including the slat, sweet, umami, and spicy or note of seafood, meaty, dairy by giving them long-lasting and mouthfulness.

Kokumi substances do not have the tasty of their own, but they can activate calcium receptors on the tongue. When the receptors are activated, humans feel sensitive to all the flavors multiple times.

When you add kokumi yeast extract, not only umami and richness given to the food but also the taste of the Sweet, Salty, Spicy, etc., is improved, by sense to them is more increased, the allover flavor of food is improved. On the other hand, less natural flavor, salt, sugar, etc., needs to be added. A study showed that the Kokumi yeast extract could reduce at least 30% of salt, sugar, or fat without compromising flavor.

Kokumi Yeast Extract is The Most Advance YE Product in The Industry

The yeast extract is recognized as a flavor enhancer; Yeast extract’s first generation is based on hydrolyzed yeast protein into tiny peptides and free amino acids; it is called standard yeast extract. The function of the standard yeast extract is improved umami of food, providing complexity, off-note masking, and used as the raw material of heat reaction flavor.
In most circumstances, the dose of standard and yeast extract is about 1%

The 2nd generation is flavored yeast extract and heat reacted yeast extract; the standard yeast extract might have off note called yeasty,
The flavored yeast is a product that contains ingredients or additives which could bring yeast extract new flavor and diluted or cover the yeasty, and at the same time, the flavored yeast is closer to the food itself.
The heated reacted yeast extract has to combine other food ingredients as sugar gets through Maillard reaction, totally remove the yeasty and create the flavor like meat or soy sauce.
The flavored yeast extract or heated yeast could contain some additive, making it not a “clean label.”

The third generation of yeast extract is Nucleotide enriched yeast extract and Glutamic acid-enriched yeast extract.
The nucleotide enriched yeast extract is created by hydrolyzed RNA into free nucleotide. The nucleotide enriched yeast extract could improve the umami better than standard yeast extract, and it is used in improving umami, salt and sugar reduction, and MSG replacement.
Glutamic acid-enriched yeast extract has a better taste than standard yeast extract but is not as strong as nucleotide enriched yeast extract.
The dose of nucleotide enriched yeast extract is about 0.5%-0.2%

The latest yeast extract industry is Kokumi yeast extract; the kokumi yeast extract is rich in γ-glutamyl peptides, GSH, and umami molecular. It contains all the advantages of the yeast extract. And it is minor in dose; it only needs 0.3-0.1%.

And Kokumi yeast extract could improve the overall flavor of the food. Including meaty, seafood, or dairy note. Even the vegetable spicy and the taste of Kokumi yeast extract itself is balanced, harmonious, full-body. It can improve the original taste of food by changing the origin taste profile.

And kokumi yeast extract has an extensive taste lasting time than another yeast extract has.

The Application of Kokumi Yeast Extract(Trends)

Application

Kokumi Yeast extract is not only applicable on traditional Umami applications, including Compound condiments, Seasoning, Snacks, Biscuit, Bouillon and Soup, Sausages, Instant noodles, Ready foods, and all kinds of Sauces; Kokumi is also good at the application on:

• Sweety foods or beverages which need to reduce sugar dose
• Foods need to reduce the salt dose
• Foods need to reduce the fat dose
• Dairy food like cheese or cheese powder
• Vegan food or plant-base foods which need meaty notes
• Increase vegetable hotness
• MSG replacement.
• Food needs improve thickness, body and long-lasting
• Replacement for the Yeast extract which brings the unpleasant note.

Industry Trends

Kokumi is related to less salt, sugar, fat, and natural flavor is added to food, which is associated with Calorie limited and less risk of Cardiovascular disease,
MSG replacement is related to clean label and balance of amino acid intakes.
Besides the Kokumi make food formula more healthy, it also brings a harmonious and balanced taste to food, making the food tastes more natural, which will stand out from the cheap foods feels lots of artificial additives. It helps food manufacturers to uplevel the product from the competitive product.

Hiyeast-Kokumi YE is Generation 4 YE product.

We consider our kokumi yeast extract as the future of the yeast extract industry. In the replacement of most yeast extract, kokumi yeast extract is more strong in the flavor profile. It can improve the overall flavor of the food without changing the original flavor, which is the benefit other 3 generation Yeast extract is not capable of. And Kokumi yeast extract is small in dose, which is only 0.1-0.3% only. In the end, Kokumi Yeast extract is even cheaper.

Hiyeast provides high cost-effective Kokumi yeast extract all over the world. To get more information, please visit our website.