New Clean-Label Starches at IFT 2016 Give Food Formulators Better Tools

Clean-label starches took center stage as ingredient suppliers showcased their newest clean-label alternatives at July’s Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting & Food Expo (IFT). Tate & Lyle (Decatur, IL) and Beneo (Manheim, Germany) both unveiled new ingredients that meet the demands for label transparency while providing food formulators with rigorous performance and good sensory attributes.

Tapioca Starch

Tate & Lyle has added tapioca-based starches to its Claria clean-label starch line. The new Claria Delight tapioca starches join the corn-based clean-label starches in the Claria line launched in October 2014.

Werner Barbosa, global platform leader, texturants, told Nutritional Outlook that tapioca has a growing profile in clean-label starches. “There is renewed interest in tapioca starches in the clean-label space,” he said. “Most of the starch produced in the world and in North America are corn based, but in the clean-label space in the last five years, we’ve noticed that 40% of the clean-label products that contain starch contain tapioca starch.” At IFT, Tate & Lyle cited Innova Market Insights data showing that of the top five starches used in new clean-label product launches in 2010-2015, use of tapioca starch grew the fastest (an average 27% growth in new product launches).

Why is tapioca so popular again? Taste may have something to do with it, Barbosa said. “Some people prefer the flavor of tapioca. It’s a little less grainy or less cereal-based than some of the corn-based materials.”

Interest in non-GMO ingredients may be another driver because, as Barbosa explained, “there is no tapioca that is GMO. So the fact that it’s naturally non-GMO could drive increased interest within clean-label products.”

The Claria Delight starches perform similarly to modified starches in terms of process tolerance, Barbosa said. Compared to corn-based starches, the tapioca starches have a slightly different texture, which, like modified tapioca starch, is more akin to a translucent gel. “A lot of the starches that you see produced from corn-or waxy corn, as we call it-are just thickeners. Tapioca can provide you with a very soft gel that provides a different texture preferred in some applications like yogurt, puddings, and other dairy products, for instance,” Barbosa said. Tapioca’s flavor may also be preferred in these types of applications.

Claria Delight is a one-to-one replacement for modified tapioca starches, the company says, claiming that “other functional, ‘clean-label’ tapioca starches must be used at higher concentrations to provide comparable thickening.”

Other Claria Delight applications include soups, sauces, custards, mousses, and fruit preparations. The starches have a clean flavor profile and a clean, white color beneficial to lighter-colored products. According to the company, “Claria Delight has been shown in internal sensory testing to have a lighter color and cleaner taste than other functional ‘clean-label’ tapioca-based starches on the market.”

At IFT, Tate & Lyle provided samples of a clean-label “sweet street taco” with a honey chipotle sauce made with Claria Delight. Barbosa pointed out that Claria Delight provides some unique benefits to sauces specifically. “Tapioca is a little more translucent, so in some sauces, you have the ability to create a sauce that’s not too cloudy,” he said.

Finally, the starches are durable. “While native tapioca starches break apart under heat and shear, Tate & Lyle’s proprietary processing technique enables Claria Delight granules to stay intact after cooking under a range of conditions,” the company says.

Rice Starch

Beneo introduced a clean-label starch of its own, this one produced from rice.

“The purpose of Remypure is really to have a high-functional, clean-label rice starch that performs really well in products under processing conditions that are really harsh: low pH, high temperature, and high shear,” said Pierre Donck, regional products manager, Beneo. “Our purpose is to be able to replace modified starches with a native, natural, clean-label rice starch,” he added.

The company is targeting three applications for Remypure: soups and sauces, dairy, and baby food. Donck said that the waxy rice starch provides good mouthfeel to these applications.

Remypure may even step in where some of the firm’s other clean-label starches can’t, such as in a tomato sauce or a dairy preparation for which other starches may not provide the necessary functionality, he said. “The purpose of Remypure is to have good performance in applications where there is a lot of stress on the starch itself,” Donck said.

Beneo is calling Remypure “the company’s first high-performing rice starch that qualifies for both natural and clean-label status worldwide.” To create the starch, Donck said, Beneo employs a proprietary combination of high temperature and specific moisture conditions that “allow you to obtain a starch that is physically altered but still considered natural and clean label.”

In technical trials, Remypure exhibited good performance without the use of any chemicals, the firm says. When tested in fruit preparations, the starch “showed an improved viscosity build-up equivalent to chemically modified starches,” while maintaining a clean, fruity flavor and smooth texture. Other technical trials showed the starch to have a “better tolerance towards acidity and heat than other clean-label starches.” Plus, the ingredient performs well in cold temperatures. “Due to its unique molecular structure of amylopectin, which reduces retrogradation, Remypure provides an increased shelf life and freeze-thaw stability,” the firm said

At IFT, the company sampled Remypure in a fruit-flavored dairy drink.

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Jennifer Grebow
Editor-in-Chief
Nutritional Outlook magazine
jennifer.grebow@ubm.com