The root cause of the guar crisis is extraordinary demand. While hydraulic fracturing is considered a commercial success in the United States, it has significantly negative effects on both the environment and the food industry. The last 1.5 years have seen a tripling in demand from the energy industry, and the supply of a natural product like guar gum is constrained. At the current demand pace from oil and gas applications, there is a significant risk that guar gum will not be available in 2012 for the entire food industry.

While we face the reality that there is nothing exactly like guar gum, it is not really guar gum that food companies need. What you require is the functional result the guar provides in your bread, your sauce, your icing, etc... What does guar gum do in your product? That's the true need.

We can work with customers to define what the guar is doing in their product and formulate a system to replicate that functionality, albeit using different ingredients to achieve the same goal. This is exactly the approach we are taking to the crisis, and it requires a focus and identity based on functionality rather than product.

The first challenge is to properly define and talk about guar's functional role. To that end, our Texture Revolution™ lexicon is an important foundation. It gives us a language of specific, basic attributes that can be agreed to and then acted upon. By doing so, we have moved an art a bit more towards a science.

Now, I should also be clear that guar gum is not imminently disappearing from the food industry. However, having alternate options and relieving the food industry from some of its guar demand is important not only for our customers, but also for the industry as a whole. Visit our website for more information about guar gum substitutes.