Industry-Relevant Approaches for Minimising the Bitterness of Bioactive Compounds in Functional Foods: A Review

Functional foods, with their synergistic health benefits that go beyond just being a source of individual nutrients, present challenges to the traditional 'nutrition' view of foods. Consumers demand proven health benefits without compromising flavour, taste and colour. A successful functional food must offer nutrients, specific health-promoting functionality and desirable sensory attributes. Attempts to increase the intake of desirable bioactive compounds are driven by the need to deliver optimal bioactivity to consumers for disease prevention and health enhancement. Increasing the bioactive concentration in foods often leads to bitterness, particularly when incorporating bioactive phytochemicals. This article provides an overview of the strategies which can be used for food bitterness reduction, with an emphasis on those approaches which are industrially relevant and economically feasible, i.e. tailored food formulation, processing and delivery technology approaches. Solutions for reducing bitterness from phytochemicals in food are proposed, including blocking, inhibiting, suppressing, minimising and masking mechanisms. The potential of encapsulation and non-encapsulation approaches for functional food applications is highlighted, and their effect in improving stability, bioactivity, bioaccessibility and bioavailability is addressed.