Clean label ingredients for bakery products

CONSUMERS seeking products free from gluten or dairy do so not only by necessity but also to reduce their consumption of certain food groups including over-processed foods. To cater to this growing market, manufacturers are challenged to develop free-from products that look and taste flavorful.

The British-owned starch specialist Ulrick & Short has been providing manufacturers with solutions to make free-from products more appealing. Their naturally gluten-free, non-GM starches, flours, proteins and fibers are based on a range of crops, and offer new functionalities for food manufacturers and consumers.

For baked goods, gluten provides the ability to develop dough, the volume of a loaf of bread, the shelf life of the final product and the appearance and resilience of the crumb in products such as muffins and cakes. Understanding how different strengths of flour and the gluten they provide deliver the functionality is also vital.

Wheat starch is used on these breads (Photo: Ulrick & Short)

Ulrick & Short director Adrian Short explained: “We have experimented with many combinations of clean label ingredients to perfect the techniques for producing perfect baked goods without gluten (or to reduce or replace fat, sugar, eggs or other ingredients). Beyond developing the products themselves we examine in great depth how the various ingredient combinations will respond to differing production methods and quantities – for example, in some manufacturing plants a higher viscosity of dough or batter would be required.

“Whether it’s for high volume production or small-scale baking, there is a massive benefit to using clean label replacement ingredients – not least that the ingredient list will be as appetizing as the product inside the packaging,” he said.