Innovative Convenience Food for modern consumers

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Industry topics

Meeting rising customer demands in convenience and authentic taste

The global demand for convenience products shows no sign of cooling off. Quick and easy meal preparation continues to be driven by consumers who want freshness, authentic flavor, simple ingredient labels, and increasingly, meals that support a healthy lifestyle. Innovations in ready meals focus on quality when reheated and ease of preparation, raising technical expectations in terms of consistency during freezing, thawing, and heating.

Commercial manufacturers in the convenience food segment – chilled ready meals, frozen entrées and ambient heat-and-serve items – therefore need continuous solutions that are stable during freezing and thawing. Key performance targets are sauce stability, filling integrity, controlled viscosity and preserved mouthfeel after reheating for an uncompromising taste experience for the consumer.

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Our portfolio

How AGRANA drives innovative solutions in the ready meal sector

AGRANA's offering for the convenience sector includes a broad portfolio of native and functional starches, maltodextrins, and clean label starches. Furthermore, starch based sweeteners such as glucose-fructose syrups and solids and dextrose are an essential part of the offering for modern recipes. The portfolio of natural flavors rounds off the mix of solutions for this market category.

Starch Products

Our range of native, modified and specialty starches provide structure, thickening and moisture control. For frozen and ready meals they stabilise texture, limit syneresis, improve freeze–thaw resilience and aid processing.

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Potato Flakes

Potato flakes are texturants and bulking agents. They enhance water binding and body, improve freeze-thaw stability and reduce syneresis in frozen and ready meals, preserving texture and mouthfeel while supporting clean-label formulations.

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Modified Starches

Modified starches do the magic in formulations when it comes to viscosity, gelation control and syneresis prevention. Modified here means physically treated starches which are designed for tailored functionality under thermal and mechanical stress, ensuring consistent texture and processing resilience in frozen and ready meals.

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Maltodextrins

Spray-dried maltodextrins are used ascarriers for fruit powder, spices and flavorings with no influence on taste andcolor of the final product. Those dried saccharification products will supportreducing sweetness and will at the same time enhance mouthfeel, texture andsweetness profile. In addition, they will contribute to tenderness in cookies, cakes and muffins.

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Clean Label Starches

Clean-label starches are natural or minimally processed starches chosen for natural labeling and functional parity. They provide thickening, stabilization and freeze–thaw resilience while meeting clean-label demands, enabling texture control without chemically modified or synthetic additives.

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Native Starches

Native starches are natural starches offering basic thickening and gelation. They deliver clean-label viscosity and mouthfeel in reheating and low-shear processes, suitable where simple thickening and cost-efficient structure are required, with attention to freeze–thaw limits.

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Pregelatinized Starches

Pregelatinized starches are precooked, dried starches that hydrate cold. They deliver instant viscosity, ease of processing and controlled mouthfeel in cold-fill or rapid service convenience foods, enabling pumpability and stable texture without heat activation.

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Vital Wheat Gluten

Vital wheat gluten is concentrated wheat protein used for structure and elasticity. It improves bite, cohesion and moisture retention in ready meals and fillings, enhances protein content and helps maintain texture after freezing and reheating.

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From native starches to vital wheat gluten – discover our full range in just one click.

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Fibers & Proteins

Our fibers and proteins keep texture stable and moisture balanced in ready meals, snacks and plant-based concepts, adding nutritional value to foods made for quick and easy preparation.

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Fibers

Fibers maintain moisture in prepared foods and hold texture stable during processing, improving bite and product body in convenient better-for-you concepts.

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Proteins

Proteins build firm bite and stable structure in ready-to-eat formats and plant-based alternatives, adding protein value for vegetarian and vegan concepts.

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From moisture retention in ready meals to firm bite in plant-based alternatives, explore everything our fibers and proteins have to offer in just one click.

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Flavors

Flavor solutions for convenience food formats which include compounded blends, extracts and FTNF types, restore and define sensory character. In frozen and ready meals they recover varietal notes, mask off-flavors, enhance perception and ensure consistent taste after processing.

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Compounded Flavors

Compounded Flavors are tailored blends of aroma and taste ingredients designed to restore or refine a product’s sensory profile. They replace or amplify notes lost to freezing, heating and storage, mask off-notes and secure consistent taste and aroma in frozen meals and ready-to-eat dishes.

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Extracts

Extracts are concentrated, solvent- or water-based isolates of botanical or food-derived compounds that deliver authentic, stable flavor. They supply intense, clean fruit, herb or spice notes, resist thermal stress and reinforce sensory identity in sauces, fillings and ready meals.

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FMP - Flavors with Modifying Propertie

FMPs are flavor systems engineered to modify taste perception or release kinetics, for example salt reduction or prolonged aroma release. They stabilize flavor through freezing and reheating, balance background notes and enhance perceived freshness and mouthfeel in convenience formats.

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FTNF Flavors - From the Named Fruit

FTNF flavors are derived from a specific fruit variety to deliver authentic, recognizable fruit character. They compensate for processing losses, preserve varietal aroma and taste, and ensure clear fruit identity in frozen desserts, fillings and fruit-containing ready meals.

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From compounded flavors to FTNF flavors – discover our full range in just one click.

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Sugars & Sweeteners

Crystalline sugar, starch-based syrup sweeteners, maltodextrins and glucose syrup solids in powder format deliver bulk, sweetness and humectancy. In convenience meals they balance flavor, control freezing point and moisture, support browning and stabilise texture and shelf-life.

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Glycose Syrup Solids

Glycose syrup solids are spray-dried glucose syrups in powder form. They add bulk and body, moderate sweetness and retain moisture, improving freeze–thaw stability and texture in frozen meals, sauces and fillings while aiding processing and shelf-life control.

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Liquid Starch Sweeteners

Liquid starch sweeteners are viscous syrups from starch. They control sweetness, add humectancy and processing viscosity, improving mouthfeel, freeze–thaw stability and pumpability in sauces, fillings and ready meals.

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Dextrose

Dextrose is crystalline glucose used as a sugar and fermentation substrate. It promotes browning and freezing-point depression, aids moisture control and rehydration, and supports consistent sweetness, texture and process control in frozen meals and ready meals

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From dextrose to liquid starch sweeteners – discover our full range in just one click.

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Convenience food solutions from kitchen concept to industrial scale

AGRANA's convenience food team works with brands and manufacturers to turn menu ideas and consumer trends into stable, process-ready formulations. From starch selection and freeze-thaw performance to flavor recovery and clean-label compliance, we offer technical guidance, trials and full specification support — so your product delivers consistent taste and texture at every stage of the cold chain.

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