Formulation solutions for plant based chocolate milks
15 Aug 2018 | Olam Cocoa
Wouter Stomph, from Olam Cocoa, spoke with FoodIngredientsFirst about its latest cocoa concepts and formulation solutions for plant-based alternatives within chocolate milk. The demand for plant-based proteins is being pushed up as more people look for a high protein diet and move away from animal-based proteins. The challenge comes with flavors and the technical aspects of the proteins. At IFT, Olam presented a pea-protein based chocolate beverage with pumpkin seed protein as well. Innovators used a dark red cocoa powder that Stomph describes as “really vibrant” and able to round off very well some of the bitter and off flavors linked to the pea protein.
This is Rob Wires at the IFT in Chicago, and I'm here with Walter Stor from Ola Coco, and one of the interesting concepts that Olam is presenting here is a kind of a plant-based chocolate milk.
Can you maybe tell me a bit about the trend towards these plant-based alternatives within, within chocolate milk and how you overcome some of the technical challenges involved in formulating with them?
Of course, thank you so much for your, for your warm welcome.
Everybody's looking for a high protein diet, and more and more people are moving away from animal-based or animal product-based proteins, and plant proteins are there's a wide variety.
The quality differs and the flavor and the technical aspects of the proteins differ as.
Their solubility is different and the colors they bring, and like I said, the, the some of the old flavors that are related to the to the to the plant-based proteins.
Next to that, there's also a big push for a cleaner label in terms of flavors and in terms of colors, and cocoa can be an excellent ingredient to help some of those challenges.
Cocoa is a very common ingredient.
Everybody knows it, everybody loves it.
So, using cocoa powder to mask some of the bitter notes can be a very powerful asset or powerful tool.
And at OM we have a vast variety of different types of cocoa.
We have over 75 SKUs, and what we've done is we've done a lot of work in looking at which powders are more bitter and which powders have a more rounded chocolate flavor, and how does that balance with some of the bitterness or some of the more off flavors that are in in the proteins.
So for instance, the example of what we showed the show today is a pea protein and based drink.
There's also some pumpkin seed protein in there.
And we use a D11R cocoa powder, which is a dark red cocoa powder that is very vibrant and that really rounds off , some of the bitterness and some of the old flavors that are in the linked to the pea protein.
Also, the color works really.
So when you're working with dairy applications or dairy alternative applications, a lot of people struggle with finding the right brightness of the product to make it appealing to the consumer.
A common mistake there is that cocoa powders are used that have some black in there.
And typically black or brownish colors go towards a gray appearance in a product.
The C value, so the brightness of your final product doesn't doesn't deliver and it doesn't look as appealing as it should.
At Oland, therefore, we always recommend using more red powders when formulating against a white-ish background like a dairy alternative milk.
OK.
And what about the chocolate lolly that you're presenting here?
What's?
So that is all about permissible indulgence.
Being indulgent is part of a, or can be and probably should be for our mental sake, part of a healthy diet.
So what we feature here is we feature 3 different types of cocoa and also 3 different types of cocoa applications.
We have a a fudgy inside with our D11S, the benchmark of cocoa, in there, and it's really rich, very nice and bitter.
And then we have it coated with a compound coating which features our new Hausman H11 NP, a natural cocoa powder that is manufactured here in the USA.
And then as a dusting, we use a high fat D23 ZR, which is the brightest cocoa powder and the reddest cocoa powder that is out on the market.
OK, very interesting.
Thank you very much, Rower.
Thank you so much.
