Why Choose Food Research Lab's FRL as Your Food Product Development (FPD) Consultant and Partner?

There are several options in almost every product area in today’s market, and the difficulty is in coming up with unique items that stand out and connect with customers. Food Research Lab's Food Research Lab (FRL) takes a holistic approach to creating food and beverage products. We define, demographically target, and build effective goods through a sequential process for category selection and comprehension. The client can visit the lab to learn the process. We offer unlimited rounds of revisions to ensure customer satisfaction. The final product prototype, along with the documentation process, including the video (through email), will be shipped to the client, and in case the client is not satisfied with the video, a food technology consultant will visit the place for the product demo at the client’s costs.

What are the different forms that you deliver the Food Product Formulations?

The food industry is witnessing a new form of consumption. Keeping that in mind, we can formulate the products in the form of ready-to-eat, ready-to-drink, ready-to-mix, ready-to-serve, and ready-to-cook food products. We use ingredients that offer an added value to the development and improve its indulgence and sustainability in terms of its functional ingredients, plant-based food dyes, and natural preservatives with a clean label.

What are the sectors Food Research Lab cover?

We cover a wide range of sectors such as soups, sauces and dips, chips, tortillas, dry beverage powder, plant-based products, masalas, puddings, instant mixes and many more.

How is sensory testing been carried out?

Our sensory examination leads to the precise formulation and recipe recommendations. We develop data-driven design models based on sensory research and customer insights. The fact-based design methodology used by Food Research Lab reduces risk and gives our clients market confidence while cutting development time in half. With our dedicated sensory lab facility, our team takes satisfaction in creating and optimizing successful products in the marketplace, generating a favourable return on investment, and developing brand advocates.

Challenges of meat Alternatives in developing New Food Product

Thumbnail Image-Meatless meat- Critical challenges of Plant

10 Mar

Key obstacles in Developing plant based meat substitutes

by Food Research Lab

in New Food Product Development

Comments

Is plant-based meat the future of food? If yes, Why? Because of plant-based meat’s ability to deliver high-quality protein to the Post COVID world while demanding far fewer resources and generating far less pollution than conventional meat. Do food manufacturers face hurdles during the new food product development process? Let’s take a few minutes to read this Food Research Lab blog to know more about it.

The manufacturing of Plant-based meat alternatives (PBMA) includes three stages, creating a meat-like structure, creating a meat-like appearance, and recreating a meat flavour. Moreover, the selection of plant-protein sources and safety controls are vital for the Production of PBMA.

The structuring process is the most fundamental PBMA manufacturing step, as it is the foundation of meat-like texture formation. The significant feature of PBMA is the fibrous structure and texture (1). The techniques used by the food manufactures as well as newly developed procedures during the structuring process is different for various meat analogues. However, these techniques can be categorized as either top-down or bottom-up (2). Top-down is widely accepted for commercial operations due to its robustness and ability to produce a larger volume.

Protein-Based Tofu as chicken alternative

Challenges of PBMA in food product development

Premixing:

Mixing is one of the most dynamic steps in the manufacturing process of PBMAs. Plant-based meat substitutes are often processed, transferred and packaged in a continuous process. This is a struggle for products that are sticky and do not flow easily. Ingredients that degrade upon exposure to atmospheric oxygen is another major hurdle. The base mix of PBMA often contains over 30 different ingredients with different physical and functional properties that vary in moisture content, particle size, rheology and stability (3). Continuous production processes cannot deal with frequent recipe changes and too many individual components that need to be premixed.

Moreover, the percentage of soluble and insoluble components in the premix is important for structure formation. This array of ingredients howcases various behaviours when dispensed, making it difficult to automate this processing step for a continuous process (3,4). Manufacturers stick with batch production methods to prepare interim mixtures to avoid complications, which prove extremely costly in the long run.

Processing

Real meat products require only one thermal processing, however, PBMA much more intricate thermal treatments during the structuring process. A group of process parameters determines the final product quality. Twin-screw extruders are widely accepted for their versatility and used to achieve higher energy consistency and uniform heat distribution (3). For example, the final product’s texture is heavily dependent on the temperature of the extrusion process, as it involves various cross-linked reactions and specific melting temperatures. Shear-induced structuring methodology achieves a small size shear cell. An optimum processing temperature of 95 °C and rotating the raw materials at 20 RPM improved the fibre structure. The final product produced through extrusion achieved a thickness of 5-10mm, whereas shear-induced structuring achieves 30mm thickness (4,5). However, shear-induced structuring is still not commercially available and yet brings out new opportunities to improve the flexibility in product shape.

Shear-induced structuring methodology achieves a small size shear cell. An optimum processing temperature of 95 °C and rotating the raw materials at 20 RPM improved the fibre structure.

Recreating meat-like colour and flavour

Colour is the main contributor to perception in taste and overall product acceptance as it is the first element to be noticed in food. Meat alternatives should strive the obtain a similar appearance to red colour when uncooked and brown upon cooking. However, most alternatives containing gluten or soy are yellow or beige (6). In the Production of PBMA, the red colour of raw meat is obtained by adding beet juice or soy leghemoglobin. Heat stable ingredients, such as caramel, malt extracts, reducing sugars (upon Maillard reaction), are usually added to replicate the final product with a brown appearance. These colour ingredients also help in thermal stability and pH sensitivity. Maltodextrin and hydrated alginates are also used as colouring agents that help retain the colour by reducing the colour migration in the final product (7).

The process of flavour formation is complex than colour formation. The flavouring agents can be categorized as either volatile or non-volatile based on the aroma and taste. Due to the complexity of meat aroma, it has proved to showcase a significant challenge to replicate the aroma of meat in PBMA (8). Although Maillard reaction and lipid degradation can be carried out in the cooking of PBMA, the slightest differences in PBMA and real meat displays a great variance in the resulting aromatic compounds. In addition to aromatic ingredients such as spices and salt, manufacturers also add vitamin thiamine, amino acids and reducing sugars to create the impression of aromatic meat in PBMA. Moreover, chicken-like and beef-like flavours are produced from hydrolyzed soybean protein.

Maillard reaction: A chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that gives browned food its idiosyncratic flavor.

Procurement and selection of plant-protein sources

The structural and functional organization of PBMA is dependent on protein properties such as its ability to retain its moisture, gelation and solubilizing capabilities. Currently, a wide array of plant-based proteins are used, ranging from non-meat proteins to insect proteins. However, soy and peas are fundamental sources due to their low costs. As previously discussed in our previous PBMA blog, proteins obtained from legumes such as chickpeas and soybeans are ideal due to their heightened functional properties.

Food supply chain

The supply chain has significantly changed in the last few years as food ingredients travel farther than ever and must follow strict regulations. Ingredients suppliers, retailers and manufacturers in the supply chain need to be transparent to ensure food safety compliance. Many organizations in the food supply chain are looking for new applications or technology like IoT, automation, and blockchain to curb food safety issues. Shortly, technology will make manufacturers’ lives easier with food safety regulations while attending to customer demands for PBMA and organic options while creating a sustainable supply chain.

Dr Raj (PhD), Food Scientist with 10 Years of Working Experience in Various FMCGs & Currently consultant at Food Research Lab

Reference

1. Listrat, A., Lebret, B., Louveau, I., Astruc, T., Bonnet, M., Lefaucheur, L., … & Bugeon, J. (2016). How muscle structure and composition influence meat and flesh quality. The Scientific World Journal, 2016.

2. Dekkers, B. L., Hamoen, R., Boom, R. M., & van der Goot, A. J. (2018). Understanding fiber formation in a concentrated soy protein isolate-pectin blend. Journal of Food Engineering, 222, 84-92.

3. Grabowska, K. J., Zhu, S., Dekkers, B. L., de Ruijter, N. C., Gieteling, J., & van der Goot, A. J. (2016). Shear-induced structuring as a tool to make anisotropic materials using soy protein concentrate. Journal of Food Engineering, 188, 77-86.

4. Schreuders, F. K., Dekkers, B. L., Bodnár, I., Erni, P., Boom, R. M., & van der Goot, A. J. (2019). Comparing structuring potential of pea and soy protein with gluten for meat analogue preparation. Journal of Food Engineering, 261, 32-39.

5. Krintiras, G. A., Göbel, J., Van der Goot, A. J., & Stefanidis, G. D. (2015). Production of structured soy-based meat analogues using simple shear and heat in a Couette Cell. Journal of Food Engineering, 160, 34-41.

6. Kyriakopoulou, K., Dekkers, B., & Van der Goot, A. J. (2019). Sustainable meat production and processing.

7. Bohrer, B. M. (2019). An investigation of the formulation and nutritional composition of modern meat analogue products. Food Science and Human Wellness, 8(4), 320-329.

8. Kumar, P., Chatli, M. K., Mehta, N., Singh, P., Malav, O. P., & Verma, A. K. (2017). Meat analogues: Health promising sustainable meat substitutes. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 57(5), 923-932.