FDBusiness.com

DuPont Nutrition & Health is to set a healthy direction for Europe’s hard-pressed bread market with a concept inspired by Nordic thin breads. Rich in healthy carbs, the company claims, Nordic Light Thins targets consumers who are turning their back on traditional wheat bread.

Bread sales forecasts from Mintel point to low growth rates up to 2020, particularly in Western Europe, DuPont notes. With 70% of consumers today making a conscious effort to follow a healthy diet, many see bread as being too high in calories, sugar and carbohydrates.

Nordic Light Thins is part of a series of DuPont alternative carbs concepts, designed to help bakers tempt consumers back to supermarket bread shelves.

Soft and dimpled with a thickness between that of toast bread and tortillas, the thin bread concept contains 50% oats, buckwheat and barley in the flour – Nordic grains that DuPont says are recognised for their high content of fibre and other important nutrients.

According to the company, DuPont’s blend of enzymes and vegetable-based emulsifiers POWERBake Thins keeps the thin breads feeling soft and fresh for up to 14 days in ambient storage.

“Thin bread has long been a firm favourite in Sweden and Finland, where consumers treat it as a sandwich bread,” said Jan Charles Hansen, principal bakery application specialist at DuPont. “Nordic Light Thins is made with half the refined wheat flour of standard wheat bread. Among the fibre and nutrients, the concept contains beta-glucan, which helps to reduce high levels of blood cholesterol.”

Other concepts in the DuPont alternative carbs series draw on the bioavailable nutrients in sprouted wheat, ancient grains and seeds, and the novel hybrid grain tritordeum, derived from wheat and barley.

The concepts include a barley breakfast biscuit, sprouted whole grain bread and nutritious tortillas. For bakers with extrusion facilities, DuPont has also developed a protein-enriched, high-fibre concept for extruded bread sticks. All the concepts contain ingredients from the DuPont Danisco range.

DuPont Nutrition & Health combines in-depth knowledge of food and nutrition with current research and expert science to deliver value to the food, beverage and dietary supplement industries. DuPont has been bringing world-class science and engineering to the global marketplace in the form of innovative products, materials, and services since 1802.