The X-Pand’R SC starch is the second to boast a clean label in the company’s X-Pand’R range of starches as the company looks to follow the trend for natural foods.
Tate & Lyle product manager Ryan Schuering told FoodNavigator-USA.com: “We have seen our customers have a growing interest in natural products and clean label products, and they are looking for new textures. We currently have a good line of snack starches, but first and foremost, when people ask about a new product they ask if it’s natural.”
Applications
The new starch is made from cold-water-swelling maize starch “with no artificial additives” and has various applications within the snack category, including providing a crispy texture for extruded snacks at low temperatures, as a light crisp coating for dried fruit and nuts on baked goods, and the company says it is non-sticky, allowing faster machine throughput for sheeted and formed snacks with less moisture.
While the company’s first natural starch in the range, X-Pand’R 612, was developed to give a crispy, crackly texture and firmer bite, this latest addition is for more of a crispy, crunchy texture, explained Schuering.
The company also claimed that the starch can provide the mouthfeel of fried foods without the calories of cooking oil.
Schuering said: “Tate & Lyle understands that consumers desire variety in the texture of their snack and bakery products. Whether it’s layered, crispy or crunchy, we are offering snack and bakery manufacturers multiple instant starches to help them deliver snack food products with the texture consumers want and expect.”
Cheaper, clean label
There has been a flurry of natural starch products come onto the market recently as starch producers increasingly tap into manufacturers’ demands for starches to replicate the mouthfeel of fats, or as a replacement for uncertain gum arabic supplies.
Starches are increasingly being marketed as a cheaper, clean label ingredient.
However, Schuering added that X-Pand’R SC is not intended as a replacement for manufacturers’ other ingredients.
“They would have been looking for a starch anyway,” he said. “…We already have a very robust snack portfolio. As we look forward we are going to try to keep our finger on customer trends.”