NSFI talks benefits of external research link up

28-Apr-2009 - Last updated on 29-Apr-2009 at 10:48 GMT

Partnering with an external research organisation can bring new insights into ingredient uses, and help develop new tools to meet manufacturers’ pressing needs, according to National Starch Food Innovation.

Food ingredients firms are increasingly expected to provide application support for their customers, advising on the best way to use them and helping solve formulation issues. Gone are the days when a supplier would simply deliver an ingredient and leave the customer to figure out how to use it best.

In order to explore the full potential of its slate of ingredients and develop possible new ones, NSFI teamed up with Campden BRI to explore behaviours of its starches under different conditions and to test out uses in new applications.

In January it commercialised its first new product born out of the relationship: N-Dulge FR, a tapioca starch that can enable a 75 per cent reduction on the butter, margarine or shortening used in cakes, and around a 30 per cent reduction on that used in soft baked goods like muffins and cookies.

While the partners have focused largely on bakery applications to date, there is much scope to work on other applications too in the future, and they are understood to have a number of projects in the pipeline.

Investigations the NSFI-Campden BRI team has been working on include making foccacia bread that is high in fibre, and using starch to control the texture of biscuits.

A spokesperson told FoodNavigator.com that while NSFI has a deep knowledge of starch, Campden BRI brings to the table its expertise in different applications and state-of-the-art specialist equipment that NSFI does not have in-house.

Alison Knight, European technical development manager for NSFI, said: “By gaining new perspectives on how our ingredients can be used, we can maximise our best concepts to help food manufacturers add value to their products”.

N-Dulge FR

Before launching the new addition, NSFI already had a raft of starches under the N-Dulge brand, which is all about fat reduction. N-Dulge FR is the first time it has targeted cakes.

The starch, which was 18 months in development, is a compound ingredient comprised of dextrin and starch components. These components have undergone physical processing but not chemical, meaning that they meet clean-label requirements. The label declaration is dextrin starch.