Plant-based drinks with
perfect “milky” foam
With its emulsifying properties, legume
protein naturally ensures homogeneous
liquids, so emulsifiers and stabilisers
can become superfluous. When it
comes to plant-based drinks, the experts
at Müller’s Mühle have a clear
raw material favourite: Red lentils.
Sensorially, this ingredient convinces
with its mild flavour profile. Being high
in protein, it is also nutritionally valuable,
and its foam forming qualities
make it especially interesting for barista
specialities such as cappuccino and
latte macchiato. Christian Bärenwalde,
Business Developer at Müller’s Mühle,
explains: “The consistency of vegetable
based milk foams depends primarily
on their protein content. Drinks
made from protein-rich flours produce
high volume and compact foams. In
practical tests, our red lentil prototype
performed best. Chickpea drinks, on
the other hand, showed comparatively
poor foaming properties – without a
doubt due to chickpea flour’s lower
protein content, and probably also because
it is higher in fat. The more proteins
that are bound to fat molecules,
the fewer are available to lodge at the
interface between the water phase
and air.”
True all-rounders, legume flours
can also be combined with other raw
materials such as rice, oats or almonds,
and can be used specifically as
natural emulsifiers.
Chickpeas: When
consistency matters
With their balanced protein-starch ratio,
chickpea concentrates form good
gels. This makes them ideal for applications
where a creamy texture is
required, such as yoghurts, curd products,
desserts and cream cheeses. As
they are very light in colour, they also
contribute to an authentic look.
Vegan cheese: an R&D
masterpiece
According to the “Plant-based Food
Sector Report” by Smart Protein, the
PLANT BASED DAIRY ALTERNATIVES 2021
respect. Their excellent nutritional profile
can also have a positive impact on
a product’s NutriScore – a label that
more and more health-conscious European
consumers value. In addition,
they are clean-label ingredients which
are naturally free from gluten and soy.
Thus, they meet a multitude of current
consumer expectations.
Until now, pulses have played a minor
role in the dairy and cheese substitute
segment – so they offer enormous
potential to create differentiating features
that stand out from the competition
in a still relatively unsaturated
market. That the relevance of legume
variants will change is obvious: Only
recently, food giant Nestlé launched a
plant-based drink made from yellow
peas.
Research into sustainable
nutrition ce
Müller’s Mühle is one of a total of about
30 partners from industry and research
participating in the EU-funded
Smart Protein project. The overall
goal of the project is to establish and
promote a sustainable, plant-based
diet. A sub-goal is to identify the individual
nutritional and sensorial properties
of different vegetable proteins
and, based on this, to determine the
best food and beverage applications
for each one. The next step will be to
commercialise these solutions. With its
expertise in the procurement and processing
of legumes and its experience
in producing legume-based ingredients
on an industrial scale, the company
brings valuable practical input to
the project. Photos: Müller's Mühle
European market for plant-based
cheese more than doubled between
2018 and 2020, and was worth 60
million euros in 2020. With demand
set to continue to increase, the R&D
team at Müller’s Mühle is currently
testing a plant-based substitute for
feta, as well as cheese spread based
on chickpeas. The biggest challenges
from a product development point of
view are semi-hard and hard cheeses.
Christian Bärenwalde says: “In classic
cheese production, fermentation is
what creates texture and taste. Unfortunately,
it’s not easy to transfer this
ripening process to plant-based alternatives
– the difficulty lies in making
technological adjustments that deliver
the desired properties. Our R&D team
is working flat out on solutions that are
convincing in terms of functionality as
well as sensory appeal.”
Outlook
The market potential for alternatives
to dairy products is enormous. Not only
are more and more people opting for a
purely plant-based diet, it also seems
certain that the “dairy flexitarianism”
trend will continue to grow. Legumebased
ingredients are a contemporary
approach because they deliver in terms
of nutritional physiology and sustainability.
They have a low water requirements
during cultivation. They also
bind nitrogen from the air into the soil,
increasing its fertility naturally, without
the need for nitrogenous fertilisers. In
addition to their high protein content,
they contain fibre and minerals, B vitamins
and trace elements, and are far
superior to plant protein isolates in this
Chickpea concentrates provide
creamy textures in plant-based milk
substitutes
Legume flours from red lentils
are ideal for barista vegetable
drinks
1 https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/dairy-alternative-plant-milk-beverages.asp, retrieved 23 Aug 2021
September/October 2021 ¦ international-dairy.com · 23
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