PALM-ALT (phase 2): Novel palm fat replacer for the food industry

由玛格丽特女王大学的苏格兰食品发展和创新中心(SCFDI)领导的Palm-Alt项目旨在为与食品行业对过度种植棕榈树的依赖相关的环境问题提供一个改变游戏规则的解决方案。该项目由朱利安·隆尚(昆士兰州立大学食品科学讲师)和卡特里奥娜·利德尔(SCFDI新产品开发经理)领导，并与行业合作伙伴AAK、Nairn‘s和Greggs合作进行。由于棕榈油独特的脂肪组成使其在室温下是固体的，而且生产成本低，棕榈油已成为食品行业的主要功能性脂肪成分，包括烘焙行业，它被用于质构、起酥油、泡沫稳定和口感特性。然而，由于过度种植棕榈树对森林砍伐和气候变化的破坏性环境影响，该行业正在寻找可持续的替代方案。在努力开发更可持续的棕榈树种植实践的同时，目前的棕榈油替代战略已经导致了一些商业产品。然而，由于与健康相关的问题，包括高饱和脂肪含量和反式脂肪酸的存在，它们的影响和扩展是有限的。棕榈油-ALT解决方案基于可持续成分(亚麻籽加工副产品和β-葡聚糖)的新型组合，当在特定条件下加工时，能够模仿棕榈油的功能，从而可以用更健康的菜籽油(低饱和脂肪和高多不饱和脂肪)取代它。2020年，该小组完成了第一阶段项目，证明了该方法的技术可行性。目前的第二阶段项目旨在设计新型棕榈油替代品和新型无棕榈油烘焙应用的原型(糕点，蛋糕，Palm-Alt建议旨在通过以下方式显著促进食品工业的可持续发展：*通过开发更健康的无棕榈油产品来减少对过度种植和棕榈油进口的依赖*通过增加这些更健康的新产品的市场优势来帮助行业合作伙伴从新冠肺炎大流行中恢复过来*开发目前使用的亚麻籽加工联合产品作为动物饲料(从油中提取的脱脂亚麻籽粕)制成高价值成分

Led by the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation (SCFDI) based at Queen Margaret University, the PALM-ALT project aims to provide a game-changing solution to the environmental issues associated with the food industry's dependency on the over-cultivation of palm. The project is led by Julien Lonchamp (lecturer in food science at QMU) and Catriona Liddle (new product development manager at the SCFDI) and is carried out in collaboration with industry partners AAK, Nairn's and Greggs.Due to its unique lipid composition allowing it to be solid at room temperature and its low production costs, palm oil has become the main functional fat ingredient across the food industry, including the bakery sector in which it is used for its texturising, shortening, foam stabilisation and mouthfeel properties. However, due to the devastating environmental impact of palm over-cultivation on deforestation and climate change, the industry is looking for sustainable alternatives. Alongside efforts to develop more sustainable palm cultivation practises, current palm fat replacement strategies have led to a number of commercial products. However their impact and expansion are limited due to health-related concerns including high saturated fat content and the presence of trans fatty acids.The PALM-ALT solution is based on a novel combination of sustainable ingredients (linseed processing co-product and beta-glucan), which when processed in specific conditions is able to mimic palm fat functionality, allowing to replace it with healthier rapeseed oil (low in saturated fat and high in polyunsaturated fat). In 2020 the team completed a phase 1 project which demonstrated the technical feasibility of the approach. This current phase 2 project aims to design prototypes of the novel palm fat replacer and the novel palm-free bakery applications (pastry, cake, biscuit and oatcake) at pilot scale and to test them at manufacturing scale at the industry partners with a view to commercialising the products at the end of the project.The PALM-ALT proposal aims to significantly contribute to a more sustainable food industry by:* reducing its dependency on the over-cultivation and importations of palm fat via the development of healthier palm-free products with potential to capture significant segments of the functional ingredient and bakery markets* contributing to the recovery of the industry partners from the COVID-19 pandemic via the added market advantage of these healthier new products* developing a linseed processing co-product currently used as animal feed (defatted linseed meal from oil extraction) into a high-value ingredient