Transcript

Hi, I'm Brittany VanBuskirk, a project leader on Ingredion's technical service team. If you're looking to create plant-based, high protein yogurt with a great taste and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel, you've come to the right place.

We know texture is one of the most important factors to consumers when choosing a plant-based yogurt. We also know high protein is one of the fastest growing claims for plant-based yogurt. In this Formulating Made Simple video, I'll be showing you how to overcome manufacturing and finished product challenges through proper ingredient selection and process selection so that you can create on-trend, plant-based, high protein yogurt your consumers will love. Let's get started.

First things first. Let's discuss the ingredients we're going to work with. We have five key ingredients to consider when formulating: protein, starch, hydrocolloids, sugar, and fat.

Plant-based proteins have a spread of viscosities, flavors, and colors that can impact your finished product. It's important to keep in mind the attributes you're looking for when selecting your protein source. If your protein won't contribute viscosity, you'll likely need more starches and hydrocolloids. If it contributes a lot of viscosity, you'll likely need less. Ingredion offers a variety of proteins, including North American-sourced VITESSENCE(R) 1853 pea protein isolate and VITESSENCE(R) 3600 fava bean concentrate. These two in particular work great in plant-based yogurt.

Our consumer research has demonstrated that there's a strong preference for clean label ingredients in the plant-based yogurt world. To help you meet these consumer expectations, we recommend using our line of Novation and Homecraft clean label starches and flours.

Pectin and agar are common hydrocolloids we typically work with for plant-based yogurt formulating. These hydrocolloids will help you deliver a smooth, creamy mouthfeel that your customers will love.

Because we don't have lactose in our system, we need to work with another fermentation substrate to feed the culture and drop the pH. Depending on your desired sugar content, you can work with cerelose, dextrose monohydrate, or another chosen sugar source.

A variety of fats can be used depending on your desired ingredient deck, flavor, and mouthfeel. We typically work with sunflower and coconut oil, nut butter and coconut cream. As you can see, there are a variety of ingredients necessary to mimic the functionality of dairy-based milk components. Luckily, our team of food scientists have worked long and hard to determine the right ratios of these ingredients to make the creamiest, smoothest, high protein plant-based yogurt.

Today, we'll work with Simplistica YG 1324 ingredient system, an optimized solution utilizing pea protein isolate, tapioca flour, and agar. Now that we have a good understanding of the ingredients we're working with, let's discuss how we process our high protein plant-based yogurt in our New Jersey Idea Labs pilot plant facility. First, we start with hydrating our dries. The key here is to make sure that protein is good and hydrated to reduce the chance of having a powdery and gritty end product. We recommend that you hydrate the proteins under agitation for 20 minutes at 70 to a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the fat source you're working with. This will help you achieve a smooth, creamy mouthfeel in your end product.

After the 20 minutes of hydration, we send the mix through our MicroThermics unit for heat treatment. Each formula is unique, and the process we recommend depends on your fat and protein content, total solids, and industrial capabilities. The good news is we're running this MicroThermics about five days a week, so we're experts in helping you determine the right process for your formulation.

Once our mix is homogenized and pasteurized, we add the culture. When working with a dairy system, the interaction between the cultures and the lactose, casein, and whey drive the change from liquid milk to a spoonable yogurt. Because we don't have casein and whey in our plant-based yogurts, we rely heavily on the interaction between our Simplistica YG 1324 ingredient system, fat source, fermentation substrate, and vegan cultures to develop our finished product viscosity and flavor.

There are a variety of different vegan cultures on the market today, so choose the culture that works best for you, add it to your pasteurized mix, and ferment. After fermentation, we'll take our white mass and send it back through the MicroThermics to smooth and cool it. Sometimes, depending on the protein source and its viscosity development, we use a high-powered pump to cool and smooth the product.

After about eight hours, we have achieved a smooth, creamy, great-tasting, high protein plant-based yogurt. As you can see, with the right ingredient solutions and your Ingredion technical experts, you can overcome the formulation challenges to get a winning high protein plant-based yogurt to market fast.

For more videos and to explore our formulations, please visit our resource library, or click on the live chat now for quick answers to your formulation questions. Thanks for watching, and see you again soon.