Plant-based foods are a more sustainable and environmentally friendly option compared to animal products that require significant energy, land, and water to grow. However, the taste, texture, and appearance of many plant-based foods need improvement to gain greater acceptance from consumers. Now, Motif FoodWorks, a food technology company, announced it has gained exclusive access to technology that can change consumers’ experience of plant-based foods.
Motif is on a mission to make plant-based food taste better while improving its nutritional value. The company is working with Professor Alejandro Marangoni and the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada to develop plant-based cheese that stretches and melts through prolamin technology, and plant-based meat with healthier, marbleized fat through extrudable fat technology. Both these qualities are often lacking in plant-based foods, which reduces their appeal to many consumers. But if plant-based cheeses can stretch like dairy cheese or if plant-based meats could properly bind fats and proteins, it could increase the consumer interest in sustainable alternatives to popular foods.
Extrudable Fat Technology: Making Tasty and Marbleized Meat
Extrudable fat technology mimics animal fat in plant-based meats, which allows for more authentic fat textures, such as marbling. The technology allows you to run fat through an extruder and then combine it with protein to create a better ingredient where the fat and the protein are physically linked together. Otherwise, fat normally would turn into a liquid at those pressures and temperatures.
“We have optimized the technology, so you do not get fat separation from the protein. This is all about getting the fat and the protein to be integrated, and the result is a lot more like a marbleized piece of meat,” says Jonathan McIntyre, CEO of Motif FoodWorks.
By balancing the relationship between fat and protein in a way that mimics what you would normally get in a marbleized piece of meat, such as beef, the result is better flavor release, texture, taste, and moisture retention.
Scientists at Motif work in the company’s lab to develop novel, plant-based ingredients, and food … [+]
Motif FoodWorks
Prolamin Technology: Making Stretchy and Bubbly Cheese
Motif is also improving the texture of plant-based cheese with a protein called prolamin. Prolamin technology uses a natural corn protein to give plant-based cheese qualities like melt, stretch, and bubbling in a way that is similar to animal-derived dairy.
“I think the gap between the performance of dairy-based cheese and plant-based cheese is large. We are developing technologies that are going to close that gap significantly and hope to bring those to market very soon,” says McIntyre.
Prolamin technology allows you to create stretchy, plant-based cheese with a variety of applications, such as melting on a pizza, taco, or cheeseburger. These are applications that are often missing from other plant-based dairy products.
Making Plant-Based Foods More Delicious
McIntyre explains that texture, taste, appearance, mouthfeel, and moisture retention are critical for plant-based foods, but they are often overlooked aspects of a food experience. To change this, Motif is studying the physical properties of ingredients to use them across multiple applications as well as in new innovative forms of food.
“Our goal is not to replace a whole bunch of other commodity products. Our goal is to create a characterizing ingredient that at a small level has a major impact on properties such as taste, texture, or nutrition,” says McIntyre.
A small amount of Motif’s ingredients can be combined with an optimized system, which includes plant proteins or other plant ingredients, to create a better product experience. For example, they can create a prototype of a vegetable-based product that still offers a good source of protein with savory flavors and shapes. This would encourage people to make the vegetable-based product the center of their dinner plate while getting the required servings of vegetables and protein.
Motif can also scale manufacturing and make products quickly. The company has fermentation tanks in its laboratories to make products that require this process, and it has access to traditional food manufacturing and facilities.
“I am excited about what new product forms we might be able to create with some of these things. I have some ideas about extrudable snacks that might benefit from our technology,” says McIntyre.
By understanding the fundamental physical properties of foods, Motif hopes to make plant-based foods taste better. Ultimately, the goal is to make plant-based foods that consumers want to eat more of and would be willing to use as replacements for animal products.
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