Blended Enzymes May Help Bread Companies Enter The Health Food Market

Baked goods manufacturers can clean up their ingredient labels by replacing chemical dough conditioners with enzyme blends. According to a report by Baking Business, a combination of different enzymes can provide the same results in dough quality as chemical conditioners do.

“Most importantly, enzyme blends provide both a functional clean-label dough conditioning system and a high-quality product without sacrificing the integrity of the baked good,” said David DelGhingaro, President of Brolite Products, a manufacturer of baking ingredients.

However, finding the right enzyme blend for your formulations can be a tedious procedure because there are different enzyme specifications for each bread product. Bread manufacturers are advised to work closely with enzyme suppliers in order to find the perfect match for their specific recipes.

The systems approach incorporates repetitive testing of formulations in order to determine the best enzyme blend. This method is necessary for producing the same taste, texture and appearance of chemically conditioned dough.

“It is important to run plant trials to determine how a proposed solution performs in practice and can be adapted to the needs of the baker,” said Jan van Eijk, PhD, Research Director, Baking Ingredients, Lallemand Baking Solutions.

With consumers becoming more aware of food manufacturing processes and ingredients, food products that contain artificial ingredients are not popular in the market. This is why food companies are investing in natural ingredients and formulations.

“Companies are more reticent to include things like dough conditioners,” Jeni Rogers, an attorney at Holland & Hart LLP who specializes in food regulations, told Food Dive. “By regulation, when you have a dough conditioner in your ingredients list, it will specify ‘dough conditioner’ — and have some kind of chemical name that doesn’t project the kind of image that companies that are really going for a clean label usually would want on the package.”

At the Food Ingredients Europe Expo held last year, major food manufacturers discussed the growing number of consumers who are interested in clean-label products. Companies found that consumers are also looking into food manufacturing practices and are finding preferences in “natural” food processing techniques. Such methods include cold brewing, cold pressing, fermentation, super-heated steam and high-pressure processing (HPP), all five of which do not incorporate the use of chemicals.