AAK targets waste and fat reduction

Kaly Chatakondu, commercial director at AAK’s food ingredients division, told FoodManufacture.co.uk: “We launched an innovation programme into the marketplace a few months ago and we have a number of confidential projects with particular customers.”​

These included Premier Foods, which announced a tie-up​ with the fats and oils specialist earlier this month.

The company also worked with other ingredients firms and academic partners such as: the University of Hull and Thomas Danby College, said Chatakondu.

He would not reveal the exact nature of such partnerships for commercial reasons. But he did speak more broadly of many of its latest projects.

AAK's commercial challenge was: “Could you reduce fat and still get the same texture, taste and quality?”​ he said. “We have done that for the first time.”​

Spin-off benefits​

AAK’s efforts had delivered spin-off benefits, said Chatakondu. “Customers started coming back with a lot of other benefits we hadn’t even considered.”​

Some of the company's proprietary fat solutions could reduce levels of grease exuded by baked pastries, potentially increasing their sales, he added.

“Some consumers put off eating pastry product because they didn’t want greasy marks on their mobile phones.”​

AAK’s solutions could also tackle commercial problems by minimising fat leakage from products during the baking process, limiting the smoke they gave off, he said.

“One customer would often heat up sausage rolls in non-optimised ovens. They would often have fire alarms going off because of the fat coming out.”​

‘Scaling up to full production’​

New laminating fat concepts could help, he claimed. “We are working with the prototypes now, scaling up to full production next year.”​

Other projects included replacing fats with vegetable oils, said Chatakondu. “What we have done is design vegetable oils that mimic the taste, functionality and melt quality of butter, but that don’t have saturated fat.”​

AAK had also revisited pumpable shortening systems, a well-established technology, to increase production efficiency. “One of the clever things about a pumpable system is you get better dispersion – a higher level of functionality with fewer ingredients.”​

Other areas AAK had addressed included increasing factory throughput on lines by reducing waste caused by greasy food adhering to production lines.

On the topic of food waste reduction, Chatakondu said: “Butter, cream and flour have narrow target ranges in which they can function. It varies according to the time of year and from year to year.​

‘Big problems for factories’​

“That causes big problems for factories, because retailers won’t allow something that is different. Our products will reduce the amount of variation and wastage.​

“Then there’s the issue of satiety. If people don’t have sufficient fat in their diets, they will fill up on carbs.”​

AAK could deliver fat and oil blends with lower saturated fat content that could perform the same functions as those with much higher levels, he said.

“We can show 30–50% reductions of saturated fat content with no loss of functionality.”​ Close study of fat blending in relation to other ingredients could deliver natural solutions that maintained functionality levels, he added.