Shortenings are the type of fats that are solid at room temperature which is used to give foods a crumbly texture. They are mostly derived from vegetable oils. The gluten matrix in the baked goods that creates a gummy texture is avoided with the help of shortenings by creating a barrier between the gluten molecules.

The use of shortenings is mostly in the bakery industry to prepare a variety of food products such as pastry, cakes, cake icing, cookies, biscuits and many more. The shortenings are also being used for frying, especially for donut frying, as its smoke point is higher than the butter and margarine.

The availability of the trans-fat in the shortenings was due to the use of hydrogenated vegetable oils and their partial solidification. But the adverse effects of trans-fat on the health is very high. Due to this, the FDA since 2006 has made it compulsory to list trans-fat on food labels. This has led to the food companies formulating the shortenings to make it completely trans-free.

The health-consciousness consumers have been more concerned about the food products, but this trans-fat free version of shortenings has become popular among the consumers as well as the food processing industries. It had fallen out of flavor in the past few decades because of the trans-fat content and thus this reformulation of the shortenings by the companies has gained traction for the shortenings.

Some of the leading players of global shortenings market include Natu’oil Services Inc., Western Pacific Oils Inc., Agarwal Industries Pvt. Ltd., AAK Kamani Pvt Ltd., Roberts Manufacturing Co. Limited, Cargill Inc., Stratas Foods, Carotino SDN BHD, PT. ICC Indonesia, THE J.M. Smucker Company, Edible Oils Ltd., Bunge North America, Inc.

• In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had required all the food manufacturers to list the trans-fat content in the labels. And in 2015, it had trans-fat were removed from the “generally recognized as safe” products. The companies were given a deadline of mid-2018 to make their products free of partially hydrogenated oils.
• The current labeling laws from FDA approves of products containing trans-fat less than 0.5 grams to be labelled and marketed as trans-fat free.

The growth of the shortenings market has been in recent years globally among the food processing manufacturers. Shortenings have eminent benefits that it gives in the baked goods preparations among which texture, nutritional content, high melting point, and appearance are few of them.

This has resulted in the shortenings gaining attraction among the manufacturers of products that they are used in and this, in turn, is driving the demand for the shortenings market globally. Also, the no trans-fat in the shortenings is gaining high popularity among the consumers.

The shortenings have been used in North America since a very long for baking purposes in bakeries and households. And North America still remains the largest market for shortenings along with Europe. Latin America, Asia and MEA demand for shortenings are gaining demand for use in industries, but the retail requirements are still low.