IDM ¦ Ingredients
Plant-Based Detective
Palsgaard
Theng Theng Sim, Regional
Application Manager at
Palsgaard Asia-Pacific, can
help create your next nondairy
beverage, but she’ll
need to ask you a few questions first.
Plant-based for centuries
The “plant-based revolution” is getting
plenty of attention in Europe and North
America, but ingredients such as rice
and bean curd have been the basis of
Asian meals for centuries. “We’ve been
using plant-based ingredients for many
years, so for us it’s nothing new. You
could say Asia is ahead of the game,”
says Theng Theng Sim, Palsgaard’s Application
manager for Asia-Pacific.
What is new in Asian markets, however,
is a growing demand for healthy,
convenient plant-based beverages inspired
by popular dishes. Increasingly,
the question is “How do you take a traditional
meal and turn it into a drink?”
Manufacturers pondering this puzzle
can encounter a range of technical
challenges, which is where Theng Theng
comes in. With over 20 years’ experience
of working with emulsifiers and hydrocolloids,
she can help customers (and
potential customers) solve problems,
improve recipes and launch new ranges.
Non-dairy detectives
Some of the most common problems
facing manufacturers of plant-based
beverages – separation, sedimentation
and gelation, for example – are similar to
those encountered with dairy. Reflecting
this, many of the solutions in Palsgaard’s
range of emulsifiers and stabilisers can
be used in both dairy and non-dairy applications.
However, working with plant-based
raw materials throws up some unique
challenges, one of which is the sheer
number of variables involved. “Plant and
dairy are very different animals,” Theng
Theng explains. “Dairy is dairy, but in
plant protein you have soy, pea, rice,
coconut, walnut, peanut, black bean –
it’s a very long list. Soy alone can vary
depending on country of origin, how it’s
extracted and whether you’re working
with a powder or an extract. Because of
this, there’s not one simple solution for
every single plant-based product.”
Furthermore, there’s a growing trend
towards the addition of other ingredients,
either for flavour (cocoa powder, for
example) or nutritional benefits (such as
fortification with calcium). “This makes
the situation even more challenging, because
you need to suspend all these insoluble
particles to create a homogeneous
product that looks appealing.”
Add to the equation the fact that
customers can have very different requirements
for their end products –
should they be thin or viscous, for example?
– and their own manufacturing
processes. “Before we can start helping
customers, we need the whole picture,”
Theng Theng says. “We have to
understand things like the kind of heat
treatment they’re using – is it pasteurised?
Are they using UHT? What’s the
mixing process? What’s the pH? Different
processes will affect stability in different
ways, so we need to understand
it all before we can recommend a particular
product and dosage. We need to
Theng Theng Sim, Regional Application
Manager at Palsgaard Asia-Pacific, can
help create your next non-dairy beverage,
but she’ll need to ask you a few
questions first (photo: Palsgaard)
14 · November/December 2020 ¦ international-dairy.com
/international-dairy.com
