Starch reality
The use of starch in the food industry has a long history, which can be traced back to the blockade of Napoleon Bonaparte's France in 1806, when continental Europe was cut off from traditional supplies of cane sugar, according to Cargill Texturizing Solutions. As a result manufacturers began to investigate the production of glucose from starch. The work that began then has led to a range of physically and chemically modified starches and starch derivatives that are today used in all sectors of the food industry.
But more recently, as a result of the recession, manufacturers have been using starches in the reformulation of products to reduce costs. "In response to the global economic slowdown, consumers have clearly become more conscious about what they buy," says product manager at Tate & Lyle, Clotilde Feuillade. "But they still expect the same good quality."
As a result, Tate & Lyle has made cost reduction its number one focus, and has been aggressively promoting Optimize a service "which is aimed at improving manufacturers' existing brands as well as their future ones, by developing formulas that cost less but taste just as good". Its range of sweetening and texturing starches is central to this.
Earlier in the year, National Starch also launched a similar service called Value Matters, which utilises starch-based alternatives to replace conventional but costly ingredients.
"By replicating essential texture, taste and shelf-life, multifunctional starches significantly streamline production costs without sacrificing consumer appeal," says Laura Goodbrand, European marketing manager, wholesome ingredients at National Starch.
Because the industry has recently been battling with massive fluctuations in raw ingredient prices, such as oils or milk powders, reformulations are becoming more commonplace, Goodbrand says. For example, starch can mimic the attributes of whole milk protein and recreate the creaminess without the headache of cost fluctuations.
Eggs have also fluctuated in cost over the past few years and this is a major reason why manufacturers have been looking into alternative ingredients. Recently, Cargill launched C EmTex a range of emulsifying starches that can be used to replace 100% of the egg yolk, allowing for dressings and sauces to be made with significant cost savings, claims Chris Hollebek, starch product manager, Europe, Middle-East, Africa, Cargill Texturizing Solutions.
Ingredient availability is also becoming a concern for manufacturers, he adds. Cargill has launched C EmCap a starch that serves as a cost-effective alternative to gum arabic a stabiliser commonly used for beverage emulsions. Because "95% of gum arabic world supply depends on three African nations with unpredictable harvests and often volatile politics, C EmCap is an effective alternative to the ingredient, thanks to its emulsifying and flavour protection properties", he says.
Starch to cut processing costs
Reformulating food products to replace expensive ingredients with cheaper starch-based alternatives not only saves money, but can reduce some of the costs associated with processing, such as electricity.
"One of our customers was using 50300 Novation, a new clean-label waxy maize starch, to give a pizza topping more viscosity," says Goodbrand at National Starch. "After adding the starch, our customer's cooking times were reduced by 5%, saving the manufacturer energy costs." The heating times were reduced, she explains, because the new topping mixed with the starch absorbed heat more effectively than the mix of ingredients used in the original topping mix.
Different starches have different profiles, she continues: a tapioca starch, for example has a very low heat penetration rate. For this reason, National Starch recently advised a customer to use tapioca starch to distribute chunky ingredients more evenly within soup. It recommended a tapioca starch above other ingredients, not only because it offered the viscosity required, but it also heated up more quickly than other alternatives. Therefore, it took less time to cook the soup, conserving use of energy and reducing the processing costs and carbon footprint.
"Picking the right starch for a product matters in a number of ways it's not just about replacing ingredients, it's about making the whole process become more cost-efficient," explains Goodbrand.
The future of processing aids
In the future, however, Andrew Ulrick of Ulrick and Short predicts that starches might eventually be replaced with clean-label flours, as a means of reducing the production cost of food and drink products. "There has been a long-established trend towards clean-label ingredients, but even if you replace modified starch with a clean-label alternative, who wants to see pea starch in their yogurt?"
The company, therefore, recently launched Solartex: a wheat-based flour designed to enhance the textural qualities of crispy batter coatings on meat, fish, vegetables and nuts. Solartex is intended to be used as an alternative to chemically modified and "expensive" high-amylose starches, he says. "But because flour is already added in these types of product, it does not need to be added to an ingredients list."
However, the industry is far from making a complete switch over from starches to flour-based processing ingredients, he adds, particularly when working with heavily processed foods. Clean-label flour is not as stable as modified or clean-label starches, and cannot, therefore, offer the same specific functionalities for products such as extruded bakery products, breakfast cereals and snacks, he explains.
But do new sources of starch offer the same prospect of enhanced functionality as existing ones? Maybe, says Hollebek, "In the short- to medium-term, it will be difficult to find an economically interesting genuine alternative for the traditional raw materials such as cereals, maize, corn and wheat or roots and tubers like tapioca and potato.
"In fact, at the moment, the traditional sources of starch are proving to be all the more important, as they offer opportunity for reformulation in these difficult times by replacing more expensive ingredients." FM
