ORLANDO, FLA. — Texture deserves to stand side by side with flavor as a driver of consumer preferences. That was the case made by Jame P. Zallie, president and chief executive officer at Ingredion Inc., Feb. 18 in a presentation at the annual meeting of the Consumer Analyst Group of New York.

Ingredion in 2024 completed a corporate reorganization with the creation of a Texture and Healthful Solutions division. While health and wellness has been pursued as an avenue for growth in the food and beverage industry for the last several decades, the same may not be said for texture as a potent attribute.

Since announcing the restructuring, Zallie has worked to convey the critical role texture plays as a driver of consumer demand and how texture is a natural and critical complement to health and wellness in specialty ingredients.

“We believe texture plays an undervalued but vital role, impacting taste and consumers’ overall liking, especially when it comes to formulating healthier foods,” Zallie said in his CAGNY presentation. “We believe that role is every bit as critical as the role of flavor, especially since healthy offerings typically are formulated with less sugar or less fat and the product then needs to be structured with more protein, more fiber, potentially more air and yet the texture or the mouthfeel that consumers identify with has to be like that of the full calorie standard.”

Zallie called texture “omnipresent in our consciousness as a consideration for a food purchase or preference.” He said food companies increasingly have come to appreciate this importance.

“Each and every one of us know what we like or dislike when it comes to the texture of a product,” he said. “I myself, for example, only like chunky peanut butter. I don’t like smooth and creamy peanut butter. When you think about the products that you want to consume at any particular time of day, I’ll guarantee you that you’re subconsciously considering the texture.”

Offering a more recent trend as another example, Zallie said texture is a defining quality of mochi products.

“Mochi products are soft, chewy and elastic,” he said. “Mochi textures are widely preferred in Asia, but they are growing in the West. Ingredients that impart mochi textures include a range of tapioca and rice-based ingredients, both categories that Ingredion is a leading player in. Many mochi products, for example, are gaining a following from Gen-Zers via TikTok, which is a source of a lot of food trends that start.”

In reorganizing its business to focus on texture together with health and wellness, Zallie said Ingredion has been able to optimally showcase the portfolio of specialty ingredients he called “foundational to texturizing,” including specialty starches based on a number of different hybrids of corn, tapioca, rice, potato, or pea, along with a complementary portfolio of hydrocolloids.

For investors Zallie said the Texture and Healthful Solutions business represents a growth engine that will complement Ingredion’s food and industrial ingredients businesses, that remain organized by geography.

“Our four-year growth outlook for global Texture and Healthful Solutions segment is for 5% to 6% net sales growth and 8% to 10% operating income growth with improving margins,” he said. “The business today operates at a 28% gross profit margin. We see gross profit margins expanding over the next four years through a combination of actions including volume growth, with incremental fixed cost absorption, mix enrichment through innovation, and effective cost management. Longer term, we’re targeting EBITDA margins of 20% for this business.”

Over the time period Ingredion announced and executed its reorganization, it was a standout performer as an investment within the universe of grain-based foods companies. Among 24 publicly-traded grain-based foods companies tracked by Milling & Baking News, Ingredion was the only one that saw its share price advance both in 2023 and 2024, posting the second highest gain in the group of companies in the first year and the fourth highest in the second.