A serendipitous discovery in 2022 by Dr. Lin-Yun Cheng and her team at the University of Alberta’s Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Sciences reveals how to create a plant-based gelatin substitute from pea protein.
The new patent-pending product is reported to have a higher protein content than existing plant-based gelatin alternatives, but can also easily change from liquid to gel and back to liquid.
“During our experiments, we happened to discover that certain conditions, such as pH, cause ‘thermoreversibility’ of pea proteins, which could make their industrial application much easier,” said Dr. Cheng. From an article in Natural Products Canada.
If this finding can be scaled up to industrial levels, it could offer a plant-based alternative to gelatin as a thickening agent in foods such as soups, sauces, candies, and dietary supplements.
Cheng reportedly already uses Canadian peas as an ingredient and is working with a multinational plant-based ingredients company. The project also evaluated how a pea protein-based gelatin substitute would perform in real food applications, and he received $78,430 from NPC to prove its scale-up capabilities.
“NPC funding will be very important to prove that our process can be used in industry,” Cheng told NPC. “There are certain treatments that we don’t do in the lab, like pasteurization.
market
Gelatin is used in a variety of dietary supplement forms, from capsules to gummies. The latter has exploded over the past five years or so, said Scott Dicker, director of market insights at SPINS. of NutraIngredients-USA distribution format opportunitiesApril Webinar to Present Gummi Sales for 52 Weeks Ending March 26thdecreased by 4%.
“I was very surprised to see that sales were declining.” [for gummies]said Dicker. “Judging by the popularity of gummies at Expo West, we see a lot of innovation coming out as gummies, but we expect gummies to be a big year when we look back in 3, 6, 12 months.”
“While gummies aren’t doing as well as they appear, there’s room for growth,” he added, noting that performance nutrition gummy sales increased 71% in the past 12 months, while probiotics and digestives (16%) and magnesium (52%) also saw strong gummy sales growth.
gelatin vs pectin
Innovations in the gummy sector have primarily focused on reducing sugar content (or replacing sugar entirely with sweeteners such as sugar alcohols, allulose, monk fruit) or offering pectin instead of gelatin as a vegetarian/vegan alternative.
“There is currently a huge global market for plant-based gelatin alternatives,” Dr. Cheng said.
“More and more vegans and vegetarians are looking for alternatives. The growing Muslim population needs halal options, and there is also a growing interest in plant-based foods as part of a more sustainable food system.”
