Tapioca innovation
Article Type: Food facts From: Nutrition & Food Science, Volume 39, Issue 4
Ulrick & Short Ltd, a leading clean label ingredients specialist, is reviving a renowned traditional staple food by successfully developing clean label tapioca-derived ingredients, which can replace waxy maize starches and fat. Tapioca has been around for centuries as a gluten-free food and as a thickening agent but has been criticised for its relatively high processing costs. Because of this, the food industry has favoured waxy maize starches.
Recognising the tremendous potential over nine years ago, Ulrick & Short has since launched over 30 different highly functional clean label ingredients all produced from tapioca. The company achieved this by expertly identifying the tapioca plant as a source of highly functional food ingredients, which are now bringing significant cost savings and nutritional benefits to food manufactures.
For example, Ulrick & Short’s Delyte range has provided opportunities for the bakery and ready meal industries to easily replace butter and oils in cakes, bakery fillings and in ready meal sauces without compromising on taste, texture or quality. Not only this, but food producers can in many cases simply declare the ingredients as tapioca or sago, which consumers are familiar with as many households would traditionally have some in their kitchen cupboards.
Ulrick & Short’s forward thinking approach and intuition is keeping it ahead of the competition. With the future commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) corn in Europe, it will become more difficult and expensive to guarantee the non-GM status of corn grains due to concerns over cross-contamination risks.
Tapioca, on the other hand, will have a continued non-GM status, which provides Ulrick & Short with an excellent opportunity to make further significant inroads into the European food industry.
The company’s co-founder, Andrew Ulrick, commented: “We started working with tapioca nine years ago with an original objective to offer an improved alternative to potato starches in European formulations. We worked with traditional growing methods and processing techniques in order to improve the stability and functionality of the carbohydrate derived from tapioca”.
Ulrick & Short used intense product evaluation and development programmes to identify that from careful selection and management of tapioca roots combined with various processing methods, it can actually match the performance of waxy maize starches.
Mr Ulrick continued: “Not only has Ulrick & Short successfully developed clean label tapioca derived ingredients to replace waxy maize starches for thickening and stabilizing in applications such as sauces and bakery fillings, the company has also used specific processes and fractions of the tapioca plant to develop fat replacers for bakery, processed meat and sauce applications. All of which are proving to be a huge success with food producers all over the UK and Europe”.
Formed in 2000, Ulrick & Short Ltd is a leading developer, designer,manufacturer and supplier of high quality clean label ingredients, which are predominantly used by the UK food industry.
Ingredients developed by Ulrick & Short contain no chemicals or artificial components and are free from genetic modification. The company develops bespoke solutions to suit individual needs across a wide range of foods including processed meats, soups and sauces, baked goods and battered products.
All of Ulrick & Short’s raw materials are processed by accredited partners worldwide and the quality of the ingredients is assured by the controlled environment of the company’s own development kitchens. The company already has an excellent reputation for its level of responsiveness in getting products to market quickly. Ulrick & Short’s clean label ingredient range gives food producers the advantage of having simpler declarations without compromising on quality. The on-going success and continued investment into research and new product development drives the company forward,giving it a good advantage over its competitors.
More product details can be found at: www.ulrickandshort.com
