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Ingredient Manufacturers Helping Food Processors with PHO Alternatives

Feb. 3, 2014
With a ban on partially hydrogenated oils looming, bakers that have not yet switched structuring oils need to get on the bus.

Once upon a time, lard and butter were the key ingredients for melt-in your-mouth cookies, flaky pie crusts and biscuits. Then came the revolution of partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs), which ushered in the modern baking era in which baked goods with long shelf lives could be made at lower costs. That revolution is now over, and food processors are quickly adapting to baking version 3.0.

Last November, FDA announced that partially hydrogenated oils, the materials that create trans fatty acids in many foods, are no longer GRAS (generally recognized as safe). Since 2006, PHOs have carried a trans-fat labeling requirement, which was enough of an incentive for many, but not all, food processors to move away from their use. Those selling only to foodservice, for instance had no consumer labeling to content with, and may have clung to existing formulas.

“Foodservice did not have labels to worry about, so they have been the slowest to come around,” says Gerald McNeill, vice president of research and development at IOI Loders Croklaan, Channahon, Ill.

Ingredient suppliers such as Loders have been busy for the past decade developing products that will allow for some of the functionality of PHOs without the transfat. Additionally, animal fats may be welcomed back in some circles of the baking segment.

“There is a lot of renewed activity,” McNeil says. “We have had a lot of recent inquiries from companies that are looking for alternatives to PHOs. The good news is we have quite few products in our portfolio that can replace them.”

Meanwhile, bakers have a broader selection of sweeteners and convenience ingredients to choose from as they reformulate for life after PHOs.

To the Tropics!

Pillsbury Artisan Pizza Crust uses partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil but manages a zero trans fat claim.

Palm oil has been used extensively in other parts of the world for decades, but often avoided in the U.S. because its saturated fat levels are significantly higher than that of hydrogenated oils. With the discovery that trans-fatty acids, are exponentially more harmful than saturated fats, there will be more consumer acceptance of palm-based products, McNeil predicts. Plus, steps can be taken to lower the overall saturated fat levels of palm oils, mostly through blending and processing.

“We have identified more than 20 components from palm oil,” he says. "We are able to separate those into their component forms through things like filtration and pressing and crystallization.”

That is how ingredient companies will be able to develop products with a variety of functions that will be nearly as flexible and easy to use as hydrogenated oils.

Bob Wainwright, technical director for the oils and shortenings group at Cargill Co., Wayzata, Minn., says tropical oils like palm will help fill the vacancy left by PHOs. Another option will be interesterification of seed oils.

Interesterified fat is a type of oil where the fatty acids have been moved from one triglyceride molecule to another. It is generally done to modify the melting point and to create an oil more suitable for deep frying or making margarine with good taste and low saturated fat content. While interesterified oils have been made from hydrogenated oils, they do not need to be, and will not be going forward.

Cargill's TransEnd line is made with this process, and the company markets it as an “enzymatic alternative,” that functions much like other shortening products but with no trans-fats and lower saturated fat.

While interesterification offers trans-free, low saturate products that perform well, the process is already viewed by consumers as a GMO swap-solution that might one day prove to be no better than hydrogenated oils. Natural food advocates like the Weston Price Foundation are opposing the use of interesterification because it alters the molecular structure of the oils, thereby creating a substance that the body is not familiar with.

Some experts in the edible oils field say about 70 percent of the trans-fats had already left the market before the FDA revealed that it would move for a ban.

Kellogg's Keebler's Simply Made cookies are marketed for their relatively short ingredient deck and are made with butter, which gives the Butter cookie variety 4g of saturated fat but no trans fat.

John Jansen, senior vice president of regulation, quality and innovation with the oils division of Bunge Foods, St. Louis, says the picture will continue to change.

“Consumer acceptance is reshaping the industry as we move from trans-containing products to zero-trans per-serving and now, reduced saturated fat formulas,” Jansen says. “Consumers are now interested in removing those additional saturates in shortening applications.”

Butter, lard and tallow will likely make a measurable resurgence in the aftermath of PHOs. These ingredients can be more expensive, but they can play a role in natural foods where margins are a bit more forgiving.

Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie Crust from General Mills, Golden Valley, Minn., an unbaked, pre-formed dough for making pie at home, uses hydrogenated lard, and scores a zero trans-fat claim on the label. The company's Artisan Pizza Crust uses a partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, for now, but also manages a zero trans-fat claim.

Keebler's Simply Made cookies are marketed for their relatively short ingredient deck, and are in fact made with butter, and in some varieties a smaller amount of canola oil. Kellogg Co., Battle Creek, Michigan, owns the Keebler brand.

The front panel graphics on the Simply Made butter cookies illustrate five natural ingredients (eggs, sugar, wheat flour and vanilla make up the other four). The actual ingredient deck also includes salt, baking soda, natural flavor and soy lecithin, for a total of nine. Two cookies provide 140 calories, with 60 of them coming from fat.

For convenience, Loders Croklaan offers a line of colored and flavored shortenings. The FuseRite line was rolled out at the International Baking Industry Exposition in Las Vegas last October.

Reformulation Assistance at Test Facility

As FDA continues the process of removing GRAS recognition from partially hydrogenated oils, food processors in bakery, snack and other categories will most likely have some reformulation work ahead of them.

One way to tackle the task is to work with an oil and fats supplier to find an ingredient solution that leaves the trans fat behind without wiping out that perfect texture. To help with this, IOI Loders Croklaan invites food manufacturers to its Creative Studio in Channahon, Ill., to reformulate applications with the company's suite of trans fat-free ingredients.

“We have long provided oil and shortening solutions that are free of partially hydrogenated oils, and we look forward to sharing our reformulation expertise with food brands to eliminate PHOs from their applications,” Chief Operating Officer Bill Troy says. “Trans fat reduction and providing healthier alternatives has been our greatest area of focus.”

With an integrated interest in palm oils and successful applications worldwide, IOI Loders Croklaan has had years of experience assisting partners in the formulation of trans fat-free products, and thus has already completed much of the development work necessary for  reformulation needs.

“We understand that everything from an application’s label to the sensory experience it provides is crucial to the consumer and the brand, and we take care to maintain that integrity while eliminating PHOs with our non-GMO solutions,” says Gerald McNeill, vice president of research and development.

“Over the years, we’ve assisted numerous food manufacturers in reducing and eliminating the trans fat in their food applications while delivering the sensory experiences that consumers expect from these brands,” McNeill says.

“FuseRite is creamy, consistent, easy to use and trans fat-free, making it the ideal palm shortening," says Maarten Goos, marketing manager. "Perhaps best of all, the FuseRite line will enhance an application’s color, flavor and texture.”

On the sweet side

The sweetening of baked goods generally involves sugar. However, for low-calorie products or those intended for diabetics, other sweeteners can be employed. As with other foods and beverages, the choices of sweeteners are much broader than they were just a few years ago.

Acesulfame potassium (ace-K) was commercialized in the mid-1980s and has been approved for use in beverages in the U.S. since 1988, and in other foods since 2003. It is roughly 200 times sweeter than sugar. Nutrinova, Irving, Texas, which markets the Sunett brand of ace-K in the U.S., says the sweetener has a well-balanced taste, high sweetness intensity and no lingering aftertaste.

A product that has been in U.S. since 1993 is aspartame, known to many coffee-drinkers as Nutrasweet (also the company name). While not the inventor of aspartame, Ajinomoto Co. Fort Lee, N.J., has become a leading supplier in the U.S. On its website, the company offers information about the technical benefits of using aspartame in low-calorie products. These include a unique sugar-like taste, no bitter after-taste, and good digestibility.

Stevia extract is a natural, plant-derived sweetener that has been in the U.S. market just since December 2008. While there are many suppliers, Cargill, one of the original petitioners, makes and markets a stevia brand called Truvia, which has applications in various segments including beverage and bakery – as well as being a consumer tabletop product.

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