Ulrick and Short launches starches for the bakery market
The UK-based clean label ingredient company has marketed the Synergie brand of cold-swelling starches for several years, initially mainly for processed food such as soups, sauces and ready meals. It has now developed new starches specifically for bakery recipes.
The new maize starches focus on controlling batter viscosity, a major challenge in mass production of bakery products. The starches are applied to products for the sweet bakery market such as muffins, celebration cakes, cookies, biscuits and also snacking.
“We can modify and control the crumb structure in cakes. We can extend the shelf life, increase the moistness over life; and also on fillings and toppings, there are a lot of products where we can improve performance and improve the eating experience,” said director Adrian Short.
He added “we can look at reduction or removal of preservatives because we can control the water activity in cakes”.
The ingredients, which are produced in Europe, Asia and South America, can be labelled simply as 'wheat flour', ‘corn flour’ or ‘starch’.
Short also said that the new starches enable suspension of inclusions such as cherry, so when making a cherry cake the fruit do not sink to the bottom of the baking dish and texture is not altered.
Challenges
According to the company, the main challenge for bakers when developing a product is cost engineering. To make a basic cake, basic ingredients are needed: butter, eggs, flour and sugar and for some of those ingredients prices have gone up incredibly.
The company’s portfolio of starches is made of wheat, maize and tapioca. In order to overcome commodity price fluctuation, Ulrick and Short is now looking at new raw materials.
“So we are looking to move slowly but surely in to alternative crops such as sweet potatoes, potentially rice,” said Short.
He also added: “you want to be able to reduce the reliance on the expensive ingredients and that’s the challenge”.
In the meantime, the company has just announced that it will increase the price of its ingredients to reflect volatile raw material prices.
In addition to fighting back against the hike in commodity prices, Ulrick & Short has extended its selection of products and launched an egg replacer.
“We developed a partial egg replacer for cakes. It is much cheaper, and it is declarable as wheat flour.”
The product can replicate liquid egg and replace up to 50 percent of egg in cakes without compromising on quality, taste, bake volume and shelf-life.
