Limagrain Launches New Solution to Substitute Salt Within Bread

19 Dec 2014 --- The reduction of salt is a key issue within the bakery market. Every expert knows the challenge of reducing salt while preserving the dough properties and the finished product. Limagrain Céréales Ingrédients (LCI) has developed ‘StopSalt’, a new solution to substitute salt within bread, sliced bread or viennoiserie that allows a significant salt reduction of up to 25% while keeping both the dough properties and the finished product.

“The reduction of salt is a key issue within the bakery market even if there is disparity of the use of salt depending each country,” says Noémie Jonnez, Marketing Executive. “For example, within Europe you have different levels of salt in bakery products, with northern and central Europe using less salt than western and southern Europe."

She points out that salt has a fundamental technological role in breadmaking.  It affects the taste, with the sodium giving the salty perception; it affects the gluten network with salt and the gluten in competition for the water; also the salt promotes the bonds between the protein chains; and it decreases the water activity by increasing the ionic forces.
 
Hence, decreasing the salt content strongly may result in issues with such factors as dough hydration, dough handling, dough tolerance, the volume of the finished product, the crumb structure, the shelf life – and, most importantly, the taste.
 
And this is where LCI’s StopSalt can bring benefits to bakery processes. As Noémie Jonnez explains, “LCI’s new StopSalt is an invisible ingredient, declared as ‘wheat flour’ and containing functional wheat flours and enzymes. It is the result of a unique synergy between these functional flours and the enzymes, which is the trademark of LCI as experts in ingredients formulation.
 
“StopSalt gives the same hydration without any dough stickiness, and the same dough characteristics regarding elasticity and extensibility. With a decreased yeast dosage, it gives the same dough development during proofing and same dough rise during baking – and an improvement of the salty taste.
 
“As a final benefit, when you replace salt with StopSalt, all these gains in the bakery come with a limited effect on cost,” adds Noémie Jonnez.