Article: Clean Label Starches Get Tougher - American Key Food Products

Food Business News
Author: Jeff Gelski, Sosland Publishing

Bring on the heat. Employ the homogenization. New clean label starches have been shown to withstand harsher processing conditions, thus more closely resembling the functionality of modified starches.

American Key Food Products, Closter, N.J., offers superior potato starch that is manufactured by the Emsland Group in Germany. The Emsland Group manufactures native potato starch and a number of clean label (i.e., non-chemically modified) potato- and pea-based starches that have improved functionality/performance characteristics over native potato or pea starch, said Mel Festejo, Chief Operating Officer of American Key Food Products.

“The processing technologies used allow these starches to attain these superior properties and still qualify as clean label products,” he said. “In a number of food applications, these starches can replace modified starches without losing the required functionalities, such as heat/pH/shear stability.”

Emsland’s potato starches are manufactured from raw potatoes that were bred for their high starch yields and are certified non-GMO.

“Since the starch is processed from raw, non-GMO. starch potatoes, it has a higher viscosity than starch made from most North American potatoes or from culled potatoes and makes it a viable ingredient in more applications,” Mr. Festejo said.

The native potato starch is used as a universal binder and thickener, he said. It is used in soups, sauces and gravies, extruded snacks, and baked goods. It is one of the most commonly used ingredients in gluten-free blends/mixes.

American Key Food Products also launched clean label cassava flour in 2013 at the International Baking Industry Exposition in Las Vegas.

“Our premium cassava flour has been successfully used by customers in gluten-free baking mixes and finished goods, extruded snacks and pet food,” Mr. Festejo said. “Some of our gluten-free baking customers were so impressed with the flour that they have actually incorporated cassava flour throughout their whole gluten-free product portfolio.”

Are Clean Labels and GMO Ingredients Compatible?
No Food and Drug Administration definition exits for “clean label.” Whether clean label products may contain non-bioengineered/non-GMO ingredients may depend on the specific definitions of individual consumers, retailers, ingredient suppliers, and food and beverage companies.

“For all the hype and increasing popularity of ‘clean label’ to both consumers and food companies, there remains a lack of consensus on how ‘clean label’ should be defined,” said Mel Festejo, Chief Operating Officer of American Key Food Products, Closter, NJ. “Given that AKFP is a distributor of food ingredients and has a more intimate understanding of how these ingredients are produced, the company has come to understand ‘clean label’ to mean ingredients that are processed from agricultural sources with no chemicals added to enhance or alter the ingredient’s properties during processing.”

He said AKFP’s operational definition of ‘clean label’ extends to ingredients.

“For finished food or beverage products, that definition can be applied to mean any finished product that contains only ‘clean label’ ingredients,” Mr. Festejo said. “The definition does not touch on whether an ingredient is GMO or not. I would posit that a food or beverage can be considered clean label even if it is not GMO-free.”

Simple Ingredients. Smart Plant-Based Solutions.

Simple Ingredients.
Smart Plant-Based Solutions.