Seeking for the ways to implement soy fiber

Background: one of the promising areas is the development and production of confectionery and ice cream without added sugar. The sugar content in these products varies between 14-50%. Sugar in these products not only performs the function of sweetness, but it is also a structure-forming agent.

The most suitable ingredients for replacing sugar are soluble dietary fibers (inulin, oligofructose, polydextrose, etc.) and polyols (maltitol, isomalt, erythritol, lactite, xylitol, etc.), because they do not adversely affect the structure and rheological properties of finished products. However, all these ingredients lead to a significant increase in the cost of finished products (by 2 or more times) and are scarce on the market.

The use of more accessible insoluble dietary fibers (in particular, soy fiber) in the production of confectionery and ice cream is limited due to the high moisture-retaining capacity and as a consequence of the deterioration of the rheological and organoleptic properties of the product.

Product description:

Soy fiber is a natural dietary fiber that is extracted from the cellular material of soybeans precisely by mechanical processing, without any use of chemical reagents. It is a fine powder in the form of flour of light beige, almost white color. It contains not only 80% of soy dietary fiber, which has a prebiotic effect, but also up to 20% of protein, similar in amino acid composition to muscle tissue proteins. It is not marked with the E index, which also corresponds to the needs of consumers.

The main functional characteristic of fiber is its high water-binding capacity. Since fibers of fiber have a capillary structure, water is retained not only on the surface of the fibers, but also inside the capillaries themselves. As a result of this, moisture is distributed evenly and stably retained in the resulting three-dimensional mesh of fibers.

The main tasks of R&D:

- development of a technology/ method for changing the properties of soy fiber in order to use it as a replenishment of sugar dry matter in confectionery and ice cream recipes in an amount of at least 50% while maintaining the status of fiber (dietary fiber);

- evaluation of the technological properties of the obtained product by using it as a filler / structure-forming agent instead of sugar in ice cream recipes, confectionery products without added sugar (fat filling for sweets / waffles);

- evaluation of the organoleptic properties of ice cream and confectionery products made with the obtained fiber; finished products should be similar in structure and taste to similar products with sugar.

Method of control of the obtained result:

- preparation and provision to the customer of the final report with a detailed description of the technology / method of changing the properties of fiber (technological stages, parameters, equipment, ingredients), cost calculation;

- analysis of the possibility to implement R&D results in industrial scale;

- analysis of consumer properties of ice cream and confectionery products made with the obtained fiber instead of sugar;

- the confirmation of the developed technology/method shall be the reproduction of the technology / method by the specialists of our company and the assessment of technological properties in the production of ice cream and sugar-free confectionery.