Benchmark your protein ingredient

How to position your protein ingredient in the market: Improved functionality? Or replacing your current ingredients? Or understanding batch-to-batch variations caused by your protein ingredient. Our bench marking study compares your protein ingredients with reference products. With our 68 years of experience we performed numerous bench marking studies for both plant and dairy proteins. Do you wish to find out how your soy protein competes with reference soy proteins? Or compare your plant protein with other plant proteins? Or understand why some (batches of) protein ingredient does not work in your application? A bench mark study will show you what functionality to improve to meet or beat the competition and it will help you to identify possibilities how to valorise your protein preparation. Or will deliver tools to select the right protein ingredient for your application.

Interested how such a study works in practice? Read our case for the dairy market in which we selected and tuned Milk Protein Concentrates (MPC’s) for the industry.

“The MPC case is a good example in which we proved to be able to help the industry to optimise their ingredients,” says Fred van de Velde, Expertise Group Leader Protein Functionality at NIZO. “We are able to do this because we understand the interactions between proteins and of proteins and minerals and the effects of processing steps on these interactions. Our expertise in process-product interactions helps the industry to make optimal use of proteins in their applications.”

Milk Protein Concentrates (MPC’s)

MPC’s are widely applied in the food industry, in cheese, yoghurt, ice cream, processed cheese, clinical, infant and nutritional foods among others. At the same time, depending on the supplier a MPC can differ greatly in functionality. With this bench mark study we helped the industry to select and tune MPC’s to prevent stability issues in high added value applications, such as clinical foods.

From composition to functionality

To tailor MPC functionality, we compared a total of 32 commercial MPC samples on composition and physicochemical and functional properties to explain how control of compositional and physicochemical properties can be used.

Select and optimize Milk Protein Concentrate functionality

Solubility is one of the key factors determining MPC functionality. For determining solubility and functional properties of high-protein MPC’s controlling mineral balance is crucial. Control of physicochemical properties during processing and storage can be used to tailor MPC functionality for specific high-value applications.

Our understanding of protein functionality, from animal to plant protein, will help you identify possibilities how to improve that functionality and to valorize your protein preparation. Furthermore, our understanding will provide tools to select the optimal protein ingredient for your application, allowing a more precise and flexible procurement of your ingredients.