The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential of selected proteins as alternative materials for flavor encapsulation by spray drying. Two traditional materials (gum acacia and modified starch) and three proteins (sodium caseinate, whey and soy protein isolates) were used at different infeed solid levels; test compounds included (R)-(+)-limonene and three alpha,beta-unsaturated aldehydes ((E)-2-hexenal, (E)-cinnamaldehyde, citral). The primary criteria for performance were flavor retention during drying and protection against losses during storage. Limonene oxidation and nonenzymatic browning were investigated as two possible deterioration routes. Overall, higher infeed solids improved retention during drying and limited flavor losses (aldehydes and limonene) during storage in traditional materials only. The materials giving the highest flavor retention during drying were gum acacia (94%), modified starch (88%) and whey protein isolate (87%). Gum acacia provided the highest retention of aldehydes during storage (37 to 58%) after 28 days at 40 degrees C but did not afford good protection against limonene oxidation. Oppositely, protein materials effectively limited limonene oxidation (>70% retained). Nonenzymatic browning was observed for all powders prepared with proteins, especially whey protein isolate, whereas no browning occurred with traditional materials.

This work was conducted as the initial part of the evaluation of flavoromics as a tool in flavour research. The objective was to develop and evaluate methods for the untargeted analysis of chemical stimuli of orange juice flavour. It considered for study all (ideally) low molecular weight compounds as candidate chemical stimuli in flavour perception (unbiased) instead of focusing only on compounds already known to influence the flavour quality. Four commercial juices and their blend were analysed by headspace solid-phase micro-extraction gas chromatography (GC) and ultra-highperformance liquid chromatography (UHPLC)-time of flight mass spectrometry for volatiles and non-volatiles, respectively. The developed methods were a compromise between the number of compounds extracted and detected, throughput and repeatability. The methods were tested for their ability to distinguish between orange juices based on mass spectral information using chemometrics. Classification of the samples was not the goal of the study but rather an indirect way to test the instrumental methods, the handling and chemometric analysis of these data. Classification models were obtained which allowed the categorization of the samples by brands with little overlapping, and the tight clustering of the replicates indicated a good repeatability of the methods, especially for GC and RP-UHPLC. Fusion of GC-and RP-UHPLC-MS data sets gave similar classification models compared to that of using only data from volatiles or non-volatiles but can offer the advantage of finding potential correlations between chemical compounds and increased accuracy in flavour predictions as it includes inputs from more compounds.

Corn sauce, an ingredient obtained from the fermentation of enzymatically hydrolyzed corn starch and used in culinary applications to provide savory taste, was investigated in this study. The links between its sensory properties and taste compounds were assessed using a combination of analytical and sensory approaches. The analyses revealed that glutamic acid, sodium chloride, and acetic acid were the most abundant compounds, but they could not explain entirely the savory taste. The addition of other compounds, found at subthreshold concentrations (alanine, glutamyl peptides, and one Amadori compound), contributed partly to close the sensory gap between the re-engineered sample and the original product. Further chemical breakdown, by a sensory-guided fractionation approach, led to the isolation of two fractions with taste-modulating effects. Analyses by mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance showed that the fractions contained glutamyl peptides, pyroglutamic acid, glutamic acid, valine, N-formyl-glutamic acid, and N-acetyl-glutamine.

A liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry method was developed for the determination of 27 glutamyl di- and tripeptides in food ingredients. Such compounds are of importance for the food industry, as they can modulate the perception of basic tastes (sweet, salty, and umami). Due to their high polarity, the hydrophilic interaction chromatography mode was selected to have sufficient retention on the column and the best separation was obtained on an amide hybrid silica stationary phase packed with 1.7 μm particles. Thorough optimization of the mobile phase was performed as the start-composition had to be free of ammonium to avoid on-column cis-trans isomerization of the first eluting proline dipeptide. A baseline separation was achieved for all α and γ isomers whereas only a partial resolution was obtained for γ-Glu-Leu and γ-Glu-Ile, for which only the position of a methyl group differs. A fast sample preparation, based on successive dilutions, was performed before injection into the liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry system. The developed method was then applied for the semi-quantification of glutamyl di- and tri-peptides in four different food ingredients. The methodology will further support the optimization of production processes to select the conditions for which the peptide concentrations would be the highest.