Research into salt in cheese

With the four-year EU project to reduce salt content in food by 16%, cheese as an important salt carrier in diet is currently being investigated on behalf of major players in the Danish dairy industry including Chr Hansen, Thise Mejeri and Arla Foods as well as the UK’s Institute of Food Research. Thise is Denmark’s second-largest producer of organic milk products (after Arla) processing around 85 million kg annually, mostly from Jersey cow milk. In a £1.1 million project food scientists at Danish Universities are to investigate the effect of reduced salt levels in cheese structure, texture, taste and on the microbiology of starter cultures.

Can the desirable properties – including taste – of good cheeses be maintained when salt levels are significantly reduced? This is the question the food scientists headed by Professor Marianne Hammershøj from Aarhus University will be attempting to answer. Prof.  Hammershøj says finding ways to reduce salt content in foods such as cheese is “very relevant” to the future of the dairy industry. The project will use mathematical models of white and yellow cheeses to simulate the effect of salt on cheese shape, texture, crust formation and water binding capacity.

There’s a human element in the research too, with taste panels involved in testing cheeses with gradually reduced salt levels. The release of the salty taste and information on how the different cheeses are perceived during the chewing phase is also being analysed through the Temporal Dominance of Sensation (TDS) sensory technique.