FDBusiness.com

Dow Pharma & Food Solutions announced the global commercial availability of its new WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction technology. WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction is a range of innovative cellulose-based food gums with optimized properties that help reduce the oil uptake of coated and battered food products -including meat and meat analogues- during frying. This allows food manufacturers to achieve a fat and calorie reduction of up to 35% in fried foods, enabling ‘reduced fat claims’ without compromising on product quality and taste.

Upon heating, WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction forms an impermeable film within the coating or batter, which functions as a barrier to limit oil uptake during frying. The oil barrier also prevents loss of moisture, which results in a juicier, tastier product with improved texture and a crispier coating. Furthermore, the technology offers improved coating or batter adhesion and integrity by reducing the coating/batter “blow off” during frying to minimize the rate of frying oil degradation.

“The growing incidence of lifestyle diseases, and increased consumer awareness of health and well-being is triggering a rise in demand for healthier foods with reduced calories and a lower fat profile. To address this issue, we designed WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction based on our patented Designed Particles Morphology (DPM) technology, which offers faster hydration and improved film forming properties to prevent oil penetration. With WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction we are bringing this unique technology to the global food market for the first time,” comments Michiel Van Genugten, Global Marketing Leader at Dow Food Solutions.

The technology’s performance has been validated through a continuous pilot line with French fries, successful independent scale-up trials to produce reduced fat breaded chicken tenders, and a sensory evaluation of the chicken tenders against a control with a consumer panel. It can be used in a wide range of coating and batter systems, such as breadcrumbs and tempura batters, and for different food components including whole muscle or reformed meat, meat analogues, fish, sea food and vegetables.

WELLENCE™ Fat Reduction is the latest addition to Dow’s WELLENCE™ product line, a family of plant-based cellulose derivatives designed to provide food manufacturers with easy-to-use, cost-effective and sustainable ingredients optimized for health-oriented food applications.