Elevate your crispy textures and save costs with Ingredion

Need to make your coatings and breadings delicious and cost-efficient? Ingredion can show you how to create delicious crispy products while improving adhesion in your formulations to reduce cost and waste.

Customer

Manufacturer of fried chicken, chicken-based or vegan nuggets, onion rings and other breaded products

Challenge

A manufacturer was seeking to improve the batters and breadings used in their chicken nugget products — both to reduce the operational costs and product waste, and add more differentiation and consumer appeal with unique textures and label-friendly ingredients. To improve every touchpoint — from manufacturing to transportation, frozen storage, delivery and a great eating experience — the manufacturer looked to Ingredion for an innovative batter/breading solution that would ensure the crispiness and texture customers want.

Solution

Drawing on our industry experience and our extensive batter and breading technologies, Ingredion helped identify sustainable, clean label pulse flours that could help deliver a unique crispiness to the coatings, along with desirable package claims. Our recommendation included "upcycled" plant materials from the milling process to help reduce food waste while imparting favorable texture qualities.

And to further reduce waste and maximize value, we tailored a specialty starch solution that gives the breadings more consistent adhesion, supplementing the impact of the coating. This provides optimal textures and appearance in the baked and fried nuggets — minus the significant breading waste that would previously collect in production and in packages.

Result

Ingredion’s holistic 360 Value approach to problem-solving led to a unique coating solution that helped to achieve:

• Optimal product quality and sensory properties
• Crispy/crunchy texture and appetizing appearance
• Reduced food waste using a sustainable solution

Takeaway

The need for an effective solution to reduce waste and provide an outstanding texture was critical to our manufacturing partner. With the help of Ingredion’s technical expertise and proven solutions, our manufacturing partner was able to improve batter and breading adhesion while also boosting the quality, texture, appearance and essential sensory properties patrons crave. Best of all, our solution delivered substantial cost savings.