Ingredion Incorporated, in partnership with AGT Foods, received an IFT17 Food Expo Innovation Award for their clean taste pulse ingredients at this June’s Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Awards Celebration in Las Vegas, NV.
A panel of eight jurors across several disciplines selected four winners out of 41 qualified entries. Judges considered several factors in their evaluation such as: 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, “Flavor of plant proteins is a major hurdle to acceptance; finding a physical treatment to ameliorate the flavor would be welcome,” and “Innovative, problem-solving, clean label, and vegan protein.” Their 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 flavor 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 food manufacturers to meet consumer needs. Plus, these pulses bring added nutritional balance into new applications such as alternative dairy, beverages, confectionery and savory; and, they create increase usage levels in current application areas such as pasta, snacks, bakery and crisps,” Playner said.
Please contact your Skidmore representative for more information or product samples of Ingredion Clean Taste Pulses.