IFT First 2024: Richardson Food & Ingredients launches oat butter as allergen-free alternative
13 Aug 2024 | Richardson Food & Ingredients
Following the widespread adoption of oat milk, Richardson Food & Ingredients has launched an oat butter, positioned as an allergen-free replacement similar to peanut butter in terms of protein and sugar content. Austin Cupp, sales representative at the company, explains how the neutral-tasting product can provide creamy textures to smoothies and sports bars or work as a standalone product.
This is Missy Green at IFT 2024 with food ingredients first.
I'm here with Austin Cupp, who's a sales representative at Richardson Food and Ingredients, and Richardson just launched a new oat butter.
So Austin, could you tell us a little bit about it?
Yeah, so we, we have been working on an oat butter which is an allergen-free replacement for peanut butter, with similar protein, sugars, everything like that.
We have two different formulas.
One is a higher protein, better tasting, more of a stand.
Hopefully to put in a jar on a retail shelf at some point.
Then we have another more base formula that's more price conscious, more malleable for customization, whether it be peanut butter cups with the allergen free, you know, protein bars, smoothies, however it may be, it's a great product, smooth, creamy like peanut butter that we're hoping to launch and get on the retail shelves.
So how does it compare taste wise to peanut butter?
So it doesn't taste like peanut butter, although you can add peanut butter flavoring to create a true mock.
It has an oat taste.
I think it tastes a little bit like a cookie dough cookie batter, but it has a little bit of a protein taste at the end with the inclusion of the proteins just to get it up to the kind of the peanut butter levels, but overall it's it's a great product.
We think it tastes better than a lot of the other replacements out there on the market as far as allergen free, and we're excited to see where it goes.
Is there also an application here for plant-based formulation?
To replace traditional butter, it, it very could, you could put it with other plant-based products as to kind of create a true, you know, non-GMO organic or gluten-free option as .
So to add some creaminess, yeah, absolutely.
So, no, like I said, the, the base formula, both of them are pretty malleable and customizable into flavorings or applications, however it may be, but both are, are great products and we're excited to see where they go in the long run.
What, what was driving the inspiration behind creating an allergen-free product?
So when it comes to oats, we only deal with oats on the grain side.
That is our main product with Richardson Milling, which is a segment of Richardson food ingredients that I'm involved with, and we were kind of just wondering.
Oat milk was kind of the new oat product out on the market.
They kind of took off.
We were just wondering what's next, so they've had, you know, palm butters, soy butter, sun butters, those types of things kind of come out as a replacement.
We thought, hey, we have a bunch of oats.
Let's see if we can do something with that and create a product.
What kind of oils is it mixed with?
So this one is made with the palm oil.
We've had a bunch of different formulations to the R&D process, creating it.
So this one's made with a palm.
We've used sunflower oil in the past, soy, just whatever works best with the formula that we're working on at the time as we've honed it in, we felt like the, the palm has the best.
What do you feel is the ideal application?
So I believe with the standalone product just straight in the jar would be great whether it be for you know different facilities or companies or schools that have to be conscious about the allergen-free aspect, especially with peanuts.
It seems like daycares, that type of thing kind of have to stay away from that just because more and more children are allergic to peanuts, it seems like, or at least diagnosed with it so we feel like.
The standalone product would do in those applications where they have to be conscious of the allergens and then the base formula we feel like could go into smoothies, you know, protein bars, breakfast bars, desserts, peanut butter cups, baking goods, just pretty much anywhere where peanut butter could go in and they're just looking for a replacement or you know, just a creamy substance to put in their end product.
All right, thank you very much.
