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Looking for a 'whey' to satisfy a wide range of consumer diets and palates? Due to its great taste and high versatility, one protein ingredient can help you meet them all. BILL HAINES explains
Food and beverage formulators looking for help in meeting consumer interest in healthy eating need look no further than whey protein. That's because whey proteins are great tasting, versatile and functional performers that also deliver excellent nutritional benefits.
While fascination with all things lower carb may be waning, the trend toward eating more protein appears to be enduring, according to market research sources ACNielsen and Mintel International Group. And for food and beverage manufacturers that seek to boost protein content and reduce calories and/or carbs while still delivering great taste and high performance, whey protein can be the way to satisfy on all fronts.
SOURCES AND FRACTIONS
Whey is produced from milk in the process of cheesemaking. A complex blend of protein (principally alpha-lactalbumin and beta-lactoglobulin), lactose, fat, minerals and water, fluid whey represents a nutritional treasure trove whose riches are tapped by a variety of advanced filtration and fractionation techniques.
Whey can be turned into a whole family of valuable ingredients that includes whey protein concentrate (or WPC, in protein concentrations ranging from 25-80 per cent), whey protein isolate (or WPI, which is 90 per cent or more protein), dry sweet whey, dry acid whey, dry reduced-lactose whey and dry reduced-mineral whey. All of these appear as white-to light cream-coloured powders with a clean, neutral dairy flavour. A new extruded whey ingredient, textured whey protein, can be used to manufacture crisps, chips and puffs.
FUNCTIONAL BENEFITS
Whey protein's versatility is driving its use in a wide spectrum of foods and beverages, from nutrition bars, snacks and sauces to confections, frozen novelties and beverages. Mintel's Global New Products Database shows introductions of new products with whey ingredients increased 363 per cent in the five years from 1999 to 2004.
Chief among whey protein's functional benefits is its clean, neutral dairy taste, which requires no masking and blends well with flavours from sweet to savoury. Formulators...