Baking & Snack - October 2014 - 72

SHORTENINGS

With a plethora of
base oils and blending
techniques, formulators
can develop fats to meet
a range of functional and
nutritional needs.
ADM

and reduce saturated fat. By using
non-lipid ingredients, blending and
crystallization processes, Bunge Oils
reduces
saturate
levels by more than
40%. The company
can also use palmbased
solutions
through blending
techniques. In addition, it offers interesterified solutions
combining fully hydrogenated fat with
liquid oils to reach
the
consistency
of PHOs without
hydrogenation.
While the idea of full
hydrogenation may seem worse than partial hydrogenation, this is a misconception. "Fully hydrogenated oils, being predominately saturated fat, are
key components in formulations of 0 g trans per serving
blends and shortenings," Ms. Peitz said. Fully hydrogenated oils consist only of saturated fats with no trans
fats, but the saturate level can be addressed by blending
it with a liquid oil, she continued. While PHOs' GRAS
status may be currently in question, fully hydrogenated
oils' status is not.
These misconceptions are common and can cause
a lot of issues when it comes to choosing ingredients.
Both palm and interesterified oils can be red flags on
a package to consumers. Palm oil carries with it some
baggage on the sustainability front that may cause some
consumers to think twice despite the fact that many of
those concerns are actively being addressed. Currently,
food manufacturers can label interesterified palm kernel oil as simply palm kernel oil, said Richard Galloway,
president of Galloway & Associates, Isle of Pines, SC,
and a consultant for Qualisoy, St. Louis. And while interesterified isn't demonized yet, it isn't one of those
recognizable words consumers look for on their ingredient labels these days. "If FDA forces bakers to label that
ingredient as interesterified oil, then they may have label problems," he said. "Food executives don't think the
consumer wants to see that."

Machining the fat
How a fat performs in a commercial bakery plant on
automated equipment may not be top-of-mind when

72 Baking & Snack October 2014 / www.bakingandsnack.com

considering a shortening, but it isn't something bakers
should overlook. Partial hydrogenation creates a shortening with nice plasticity, Mr. Robertson explained, and
that provides the eating properties consumers expect.
When bakers formulate away from PHO, there may
be sacrifices in the plasticity, nutritional attributes,
temperature stability or oxidative stability. "If you
move from PHOs to palm oils for instance, not only
will the saturated fat content increase but also palm oils
are not as plastic; they are much more brittle and firm,"
he said. "They become more challenging to mix out in
application." If interesterified oils are chosen to replace
PHO, "saturated fat will increase and oxidative stability
may suffer."
To address this, bakers may have to adjust other
ingredients in the formulation, go with a blend or interesterification to get the plasticity they need or even
change the processing of the product to address the
new formulation's challenges.
Knowing more about a baker's processing needs up
front can also help suppliers develop a shortening solution that can address those needs immediately. For
example, if a baker has a timed mixing process that
cannot be adjusted, the R&D team knows the baker
needs a shortening that will mix at the same rate and
consistency as the PHO, Mr. Daniels said. "If that's important to them, we'll go ahead and design the system
so it doesn't coat the flour too quickly and get into an
over-mix condition," he explained.
One of the benefits of PHOs is their flexibility in
their melting curves and solids content - characteristics suppliers have been trying to replicate without
the partial hydrogenation process. Stratas Foods'
Flex Palm has attempted to address this by expanding the range of palm oil to make this source more
flexible. While palm may be high in saturates and
solid at room temperature, these oils have a narrow
melting range, which makes them difficult to work
with. According to Mr. Daniels, through the process
of functional crystallization, Stratas Foods has made
palm products more tolerant to temperature and thus
easier to machine.
While the potential removal of GRAS status from
a once ubiquitous ingredient may seem like a nightmare scenario, the industry won't be approaching this
issue from ground zero. "There are a lot of tools already
available, and there are a lot of good solutions around,"
Mr. Fine said. "It's a matter of bakers trying them and
making any adjustments that are necessary."

Find resources for shortenings by visiting
www.esourcebaking.com. Browse by category
under Ingredients, and click on Major for listings.

http://www.esourcebaking.com http://www.bakingandsnack.com

Baking & Snack - October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Baking & Snack - October 2014