Food Beverages And Hospitality October 2018

Besides requiring higher pressures to expand,
plant-based proteins bring additional handling
challenges. “They are difficult to work with; you
have to know what you're doing,” Kazemzadeh
says, noting that his company has five years of
experience using pea protein. Meanwhile, his
other enterprise, 20-year-old Kay's Naturals, last
December introduced the Pass The Peas brand of
chickpea flour and pea protein puffed snacks in
various flavors.
Agreeing that extruding and expanding plantbased
protein can be complicated for the
uninitiated, Rieschl insists that established
manufacturers can usually reconfigure their
existing extrusion equipment to achieve desired
results rather than investing millions of dollars in
new equipment or contracting with a specialized
copacker. Sharing examples of common
modifications, he notes that water often needs to
be added during the extrusion process with highprotein
formulations, sometimes the die opening
will need to be changed and sometimes the
product will need additional cooling to offset
increases in mechanical energy.
Taking aim at acrylamide
Beyond dealing with new ingredients, snack food
manufacturers must also grapple with an evergrowing
list of demonized chemicals. In the potato
chip category, the latest bogeyman is the
byproduct acrylamide — a compound produced
when cooking potatoes (and other asparagineheavy
vegetables) at high temperatures. Studies
have suggested that acrylamide might be
carcinogenic to humans in cumulatively high
doses.
“There are a number of solutions available to
snack manufacturers that can significantly reduce
acrylamide without affecting the quality of the
final product,” points out Teri Johnson, divisional
sales m a nager f or TNA North America
(www.tnasolutions.com), Coppell, Texas. “These
include pre-processing techniques such as
blanching and pulsed electric field (PEF), as well
as innovative frying equipment, including multistage,
vacuum and batch frying.”
In addition to minimizing acrylamide in
conventional potato chips, vacuum fryers are “the
ideal solution” for producing all sorts of clean label
vegetable chips, including organic varieties,
according to Johnson. “This process offers the
ability to create products with a natural taste and
appearance due to low cooking temperatures,” she
explains. “Thanks to a much gentler process, the
end product upholds the natural qualities of the
raw material, including nutritional value and color,
without the need for additives or colorants.”
What's popping?
Some snack manufacturers have adapted existing
processes developed for other products to produce
better-for-you items. For instance, Liberty, N.Y.-
b a s e d I d e a l S n a c k s u s e s a p r o p r i e t a r y
compression popping system to make low-fat,
nutrient-dense chips from extruded pellets. As
Gunther Brinkman, the company's vice president
for contract manufacturing, explains, at least 50
percent of the formulation must consist of an
expanding starch such as corn, rice or cassava.
“In our process, we compress and heat the
ingredients,” he elaborates. “The starch is
gelatinizing and the pressure is building; so when
we release the pressure, the whole thing pops like
a popcorn kernel.”
Other ingredients such as powdered fruit and
pulse or ancient grain flour can be added during
pellet formulation or later directly into the popping
system. “We currently do make products where we
just add quinoa, hemp seed, flax seed, sorghum or
millet into the popping machine,” Brinkman says.
“When the expanding starches pop, they grab onto
all of those things and hold them into the chip.”
Having shorter ingredient decks and, especially,
limiting the use of preservatives can compromise
the shelf life of less-processed snacks while also
increasing production costs. Using preformulated
pellets (also known as half-products) is one way to
16 Focus Food Beverages & Hospitality | October - 2018 | www.kingsinfomedia.com