Milling & Baking News - May 26, 2015 - 33

Ingredient Update

Winds of change blow through
ingredient fundamentals
Chipotle, Flowers, Panera and Kraft all plan changes amid 'clean label' trend
Continued from Page 1

decided to move to non-G.M.O. ingredients."
Chipotle took some flak for its decision, and not only from food industry sources. An editorial headline
appearing April 29 in The Washington
Post read, "Chipotle's G.M.O. gimmick is hard to swallow." The editorial
pointed out other American corporations removed non-bioengineered/
non-G.M.O. ingredients from their
products.
"Our point is that no one should
confuse any of these companies' behavior with real corporate responsibility," the editorial said. "That would require companies to push back against
the orchestrated fear of G.M.O.s instead of validating it."
The editorial cited a Pew Research
Center study showing confusion surrounding non-bioengineered ingredients. While 37% of U.S. adults thought
bioengineered foods were safe to eat,
88% of scientists thought they were

safe, according to the survey.
"Some people believe G.M.O. is
the worst thing that has ever been invented," said Steve Peirce, president
of Ribus, Inc., St. Louis. "Other people
believe that is what is going to feed the
world. The F.D.A. has said it is safe."
Ribus recently introduced a "Clean
Labels Essentials Guide" that investigates non-bioengineered/non-G.M.O.
ingredients, organic ingredients and
natural ingredients.
"My personal opinion is, if you were
to label G.M.O.s, there are so many
products that contain corn or soybeans
and their derivatives, I do believe that
after a couple years, somewhere between many and most consumers are
going to become de-sensitized to that
label, and it's going to become a nonissue," Mr. Peirce said.
Bioengineered/G.M.O.
varieties
make up a majority of soybean and
corn crops, two commodities used by
Chipotle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on June 30, 2014, said biotech

varieties made up 93% of the corn crop
planted in the country in 2014 and 94%
of the soybean crop planted.
Chipotle said its suppliers had
planted
non-G.M.O./non-bioengineered corn varieties. Chipotle had
used soybean oil to cook chips and
taco shells, and soybean oil appeared
in some of its recipes. The company
replaced soybean oil with sunflower
oil to cook its chips and taco shells and
used rice bran oil for other recipes.
While the area planted for soybeans
in the United States was nearly 85 million acres in 2014, the area planted for
sunflower was about 1.7 million acres,
according to the U.S.D.A. However,
Chipotle's decision to rely heavily on
sunflower oil has yet to be followed
by a huge jump in the oil's price. Sunflowerseed oil, Midwest, was selling
at 65c per lb on May 15, which was
unchanged from the April 24 price.
Sunflower oil received positive reviews in the International Food Information Council Foundation's 2015
Food and Health Survey as 56% of
Americans rated sunflower oil as either "extremely healthful" or "somewhat healthful," which was up from
49% in 2009.
Chipotle said tortillas are the only
food item on its menu that contains
additives. The company is working
on a new system that will allow the
dough to rise slowly and eliminate the
need for dough conditioners.
Waiting on Nature's Own
Nature's Own bread also currently
contains dough conditioners. Although it has yet to name the ingredients it will take out, Flowers Foods,
Inc., Thomasville, Ga., plans to reduce
the number of ingredients in Nature's
Own bread to 14 from 26. Bradley K.
Alexander, executive vice-president
and chief operating officer, spoke
Chipotle Mexican Grill is working on a
new system that will allow the dough
to rise slowly in tortillas, eliminating the
need for dough conditioners.

bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

Milling & Baking News

May 26, 2015 / 33

http://www.bakingbusiness.com http://www.world-grain.com

Milling & Baking News - May 26, 2015

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