Prosur targets Asian reformulation with natural ingredient toolbox

Prosur will showcase its Get It Natural ingredient platform at FI Asia in Jakarta from 16–18 September, positioning an existing reformulation toolbox around the regulatory and consumer pressures facing food manufacturers across Asian markets.

The appearance is a regional showcase rather than the launch of a new technology platform. Prosur introduced the current Get It Natural toolbox in April 2026 and has since promoted it across several markets as a collection of food-derived ingredient systems intended to reduce reliance on selected conventional additives while retaining manufacturing performance.

Its central proposition is described as “protecting food with food”. The phrase is deliberately simple, but the production problem behind it is not: ingredients targeted for removal or reduction frequently perform several technical functions beyond what appears on the label.

Nitrites, phosphates, preservatives, sugar, salt, and cocoa can all influence characteristics such as microbiological stability, water retention, colour, texture, sweetness, viscosity, yield, and shelf life. Removing one component without compensating for those functions can therefore alter both the finished product and the way it behaves on the production line.

Prosur’s chemical-elimination systems are aimed particularly at processed meat, where the company targets reductions in ingredients including nitrites, phosphates and sulphites. Its stated objective is to maintain yield, texture, juiciness, colour, and storage performance while allowing manufacturers to simplify formulations.

That balance is particularly demanding in meat processing because several of the targeted ingredients have long-established technological roles. Reformulation cannot be assessed solely against an ingredient declaration; processors have to test purge, cooking loss, texture, microbial stability, colour development, and consistency under normal factory conditions.

A second part of the toolbox is based on fermentation. Prosur uses food-derived materials and water-based processing to create systems intended to make conditions less favourable to spoilage organisms including yeasts and moulds.

For manufacturers, the relevant question is whether that protective effect survives normal production and distribution. Ingredient variability, thermal processing, filling conditions, storage temperature, packaging atmosphere, and shelf-life length can all affect the final performance of a preservation system.

The toolbox also includes a sweetening platform based on Mediterranean carob. Prosur positions naturally occurring sugars within the crop as a route to sweetness and functionality without relying on artificial sweeteners or conventional fortification.

Carob appears again in the company’s cocoa-reduction system, where a soluble upcycled fibre is intended to replace part of the cocoa requirement while contributing structure and fibre to the finished formulation.

That proposition has become commercially relevant following prolonged volatility in cocoa markets. Replacing part of the cocoa in an application can reduce exposure to raw-material cost, but any substitute has to be evaluated against flavour, colour, mouthfeel, rheology, and process behaviour rather than price alone.

Prosur is therefore presenting the toolbox as a group of application technologies rather than a collection of simple one-for-one substitutes. A manufacturer may be able to reduce a targeted ingredient, but the replacement system still has to work through mixing, pumping, forming, cooking, cooling, filling, or packaging equipment at commercial throughput.

Simon Claessens, global director, sales & business development at Prosur, said: “Manufacturers have to adapt to this new reality while still offering products that deliver great taste and flavor, as well as performing at scale.”

The final phrase is the more demanding part of that argument. Laboratory reformulation can establish whether an ingredient system appears promising, but scaling it into production exposes the formulation to larger raw-material variation, different shear forces, longer process times, equipment tolerances, and the economics of manufacturing waste.

A preservation system also has to survive formal validation. Natural or recognisable ingredients do not remove the requirement for shelf-life work, microbiological assessment, process control, or regulatory review simply because the resulting declaration appears simpler to consumers.

The same applies to sodium and sugar reduction. Both ingredients influence functionality as well as nutrition, so reformulation can change water activity, taste, body, browning, preservation, and the interaction between other components in the recipe.

Prosur says its systems are developed through in-house research, production work, industrial trials, independent studies, and commercial applications. That application-led approach is necessary because the performance requirements differ significantly between meat, savoury foods, beverages, confectionery, and other categories.

The company is taking the platform to Asia against a backdrop of increasing attention to ingredient declarations and highly processed foods. Its FI Asia material cites consumer research showing comparatively high concern around ultra-processed foods and additives in Asia-Pacific, while also pointing to regulatory changes affecting formulation and labelling in individual markets.

Those figures and examples form part of Prosur’s commercial case rather than a universal regulatory standard for the region. Asia contains highly varied national food rules, which means a reformulation developed for one market cannot be assumed to meet the requirements of another without local assessment.

That complexity makes regional technical support important. Ingredient suppliers have to translate a broad formulation concept into different legal limits, permitted ingredients, product expectations, and manufacturing conditions across multiple countries.

Before FI Asia, Prosur is also due to exhibit at China International Meat Industry Week in Qingdao from 10–14 September, giving its processed-meat technologies a more specialised platform immediately before the broader Jakarta ingredient event.

The sequence reflects the scope of the portfolio. Meat applications remain an important part of Prosur’s business, but its newer sweetening, cocoa-reduction, and fermentation systems extend the company’s reformulation pitch into a wider range of food and beverage production.

The Get It Natural toolbox should nevertheless be judged application by application. No single ingredient system removes the need to validate safety, processability, sensory performance, yield, and shelf life for the individual product being manufactured.

FI Asia gives Prosur a chance to demonstrate that practical side of clean-label formulation. The commercial pressure may begin with shorter or more recognisable ingredient lists, but the factory requirement remains unchanged: any replacement has to deliver a product that can still be manufactured repeatedly, safely, and economically at scale.