Bespoke - fermented dairy products
The increasing global demand for protein rich dairy products and dairy products with low content of sugars and fat provides novel possibilities for the use of milk protein ingredients (MPIs). In order to enable the industry to tailor ingredients and develop new and sufficiently stable fermented products, a fundamental understanding of the chemistry governing interactions between milk constituents and MPIs and how this can be manipulated is necessary. This, in turn, will aid in developing the market potential for Danish MPI and dairy products by providing a platform for development of new fermented products with a novel level of tailored texture, excellent stability, specific functionalities and robust, cost effective and energy efficient industrial scale production.
The main scientific objectives of the project are to:
- Fundamentally understand the type of binding involved when milk components and milk protein ingredients interact depending e.g. on degree of denaturation, ionic strength, molecular properties, pH and available calcium.
- Clarify how the molecular interactions affect the structure, texture and stability of fermented dairy products. Focus will be on how specific levels of free thiol groups in milk protein ingredients can be used to control the amount of protein interactions during heat treatment and subsequent acidification and how this affects the firmness and stability of fermented dairy products.
- Optimize process parameters (e.g. heat and shear) in order to maximize desired functionality (physical stability, shininess, no grainines) of MPI in fermented dairy products.
- Develop predictive models for stability and other macroscopic quality parameters.
Ruifen Li
PhD Student
Ingredient and Dairy Technology
Ingredient and Dairy Technology
Anni Bygvraa Hougaard
Associate Professor
Ingredient and Dairy Technology
Birte Svensson
Professor
Technical University of Denmark
Adam Cohen Simonsen
Associate Professor
University of Southern Denmark
Funded by:
Project: Bespoke fermented dairy products; new strategies for understanding and controlling protein ingredient-milk component interactions during processing (BESPOKE)
Period: 1st of September 2018 - 29th of February 2022
Grant donor: Danish Dairy Research Foundation and Chinese Scholarship Council
Grant size: DKK 5,300,000
Anni Bygvrå Hougaard