Ingredion Incorporated, a global provider of ingredient solutions to diversified industries, in partnership with AGT Foods, has received an IFT17 Food Expo Innovation Award for its clean taste pulse ingredients at this year's Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Awards Celebration in Las Vegas, NV.
A panel of eight jurors across disciplines selected four winners out of 41 qualified entries. Judges considered the degree of innovation, problem-solving relevance to the food industry, benefits to food manufacturers and consumers, and scientific merit. Judge comments on the clean-taste pulses included, "Flavour of plant proteins is a major hurdle to acceptance; finding a physical treatment to ameliorate the flavour would be welcome," and "Innovative; problem-solving; clean label; vegan protein." Remarks also highlighted the reduction of beany flavor by a physical process and the validated kill step that diminishes the presence of microorganisms.
"Ingredion Incorporated and AGT Foods worked together to overcome several difficult technical challenges to reduce flavour while maintaining other desirable product characteristics such as protein content and quality, overall nutritional content, and the functionality provided by the pulse flours and proteins," said Igor Playner, vice president of innovation and strategy, North America, at Ingredion Incorporated.
"With one in three consumers stating that they prefer a vegetable-sourced protein to an animal-sourced protein, Ingredion's clean-taste pulses help make it possible for manufacturers to meet consumer needs and bring added nutritional balance into new applications such as alternative dairy, beverages, confectionery and savoury, or to increase usage levels in current application areas such as pasta, snacks, bakery and crisps," Playner said.
To learn more about Ingredion's clean-taste line of pulse proteins and flours, or to find out how Ingredion's technical, sensory, CULINOLOGY and applications teams help food manufacturers develop tailor-made, high-quality foods, visitingredion.us/pulses.
