Reformulating without sacrificing texture: Stratus Foods & Qualisoy

Younger generations of consumers are frequently noted to be much more health conscious when it comes to food perhaps more than any other generation before. As manufacturers work to offer “healthier” versions of many everyday food products with lower sugar content, different fats, and gluten-free ingredients, they may find themselves in a quandary. While consumers want “healthier” version of foods, they do not want to compromise on taste or texture. This presents a sometimes difficult challenge to food scientists. Reducing sugar, replacing one fat for another, or even switching the sourcing of a particular ingredient can change a food product’s texture sometimes slightly, sometimes dramatically. It can require many hours of experimentation to develop reformulations that come close to the physical properties of the “real” thing.

Recently, Stratus Foods and Qualisoy successfully tackled the challenge of reformulating margarines and shortenings to use U.S.-grown oleic soybean oil for pie crusts and laminated dough applications. “The results were nothing short of amazing,” said Roger Daniels, VP of Research, Development & Innovation at Stratas Foods. “We found that we achieved a new gold standard in performance without partial hydrogenation.”

We are pleased that the TA.XTPlus Texture Analyzer was so instrumental in their reformulation. Congratulations to TA.XTPlus users Frank Urso, Jacob Maynard, and Roger Daniels for their hard work! Find out more in the video below:

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