IFT 2018: Tate & Lyle on the prospects of its dietary fibers, instant starches and alternative proteins 

18 Jul 2018 --- At this year’s annual IFT Food Expo (15 to 18 July) in Chicago, Tate & Lyle is showcasing its collection of sweetener, enrichment and texturant ingredients. Focus areas are the company’s new instant starches, but also its portfolio of fibers, which were recently found to adhere to the US Food Drug Administration’s (FDA) definition of dietary fibers. NutritionInsight speaks with Mervyn L. de Souza, VP Health and Wellness at Tate & Lyle, about the company’s plans to expand its alternative proteins portfolio, as well as the benefits of its fiber ingredients.

Dietary fiber ruling
In May 2016, the US FDA announced a new regulatory definition for dietary fiber. As a result of the approvals of Tate & Lyle’s Promitor Soluble Fibre (a resistant maltodextrin) and Sta-Lite Polydextrose on 13 June, and the immediate qualification of PromOat Beta Glucan, the company’s full fiber portfolio is now accepted under the FDA’s new fiber definition. 

“We’re all glad to finally have the US FDA ruling come out that the Tate and Lyle portfolio of fiber products are dietary fibers according to the definition,” de Souza says, speaking to NutritionInsight’s Robin Wyers at the show. “We were confident that our fibers would meet the definition based on the deep scientific knowledge we have about our fiber products, as well as the clinical and nutritional studies that we had done. But having the ruling come out helps in terms of opening up the bandwidth for our products regarding use by our customers.” 

“Our customers will be able to not only claim the dietary fiber benefits, but due to the clinical studies, for example with our Promitor ingredient, [they can use the benefits of the ingredients in terms of] calcium absorption, bone health. So in addition to the dietary fiber benefits of regularity and laxation, you now have some really strong benefits for adolescents and post-menopausal women that our customers can claim and consumers can benefit from,” he adds. 

“A lot of our fibers are based on corn but we also use other botanical sources; we have an oat fiber enriched with a glucan product. We are looking into fiber products that will help our consumers and customers with different applications, based on viscosity and solubility so they can truly be used in a breadth of applications.”

Alternative proteins
With the protein trend remaining strong, de Souza says the company is turning its attention to alternative proteins, including algae and other botanical sources such as tapioca and rice protein to broaden its portfolio.

“Proteins have always been important, to our customers but also to consumers,” says de Souza. “Tate and Lyle has been aware of that for a while. We have an oat protein which we have commercialized, but what we are looking into more and more is expanding our portfolio of proteins, so looking at plant proteins beyond oats.”

“We’re looking at different botanical sources and we are looking into the ability of these proteins to provide both nutritional, as well as functional, benefits,” he notes. “With our health and wellness platform, we are looking at complementing our fibers with proteins. With our stabilizing systems business, we are looking at the combination of proteins by themselves but also individual proteins to provide foaming, emulsifying and different other functional benefits. That is part of the excitement at Tate and Lyle in terms of evaluating our options to get our customer solutions out there.”

Sweetener and starches innovation at IFT 2018
Also at the food expo, the company announced that it is expanding its line of instant starches with the addition of three new thickeners and film formers suitable for a variety of applications. 

The three latest instant starches are: 
• TENDER-JEL 387 Starch: Provides high-viscosity products with excellent shelf stability performance and desired sensory properties; currently available in North America with other regions to follow. 
• MERIGEL 344 and 346 Starches: Deliver better texture that is smoother, thicker and has a higher sheen; ideal for sauces and dressings with a need for shelf stability.
• X-PAND’R 305 Starch: Improves dough machinability with minimal stickiness for savory snacks, providing a balanced crispy and crunchy texture; currently available in North America and Asia; available globally later this year.

Tate & Lyle’s new instant starches are all non-GMO and are designed for use in snacks, bakery and fillings, and soups, sauces and dressings. 

In addition to the new instant starches, Tate & Lyle is investing in the development of Texture-Vantage Expert Systems, a response to customer demands for more predictive tools informing product performance. To address the challenge of choosing the right texturizer, Tate & Lyle has begun development of a range of texture design tools to help take the guesswork out of formulation challenges. 

The Texture-Vantage suite of tools is being developed for use by Tate & Lyle scientists to help customers address their formulation challenges more efficiently, resulting in ingredient solutions that lead to “extraordinary eating experiences.” In the future, some elements of the Texture-Vantage suite are going to be made available to Tate & Lyle customers to access directly, beginning with Texture University later this year. 

Tate & Lyle is also introducing TASTEVA M, a Reb M stevia sweetener. TASTEVA M Stevia Sweetener is designed to enable manufacturers to create food and beverages made with less sugar and fewer calories to assist consumers in reaching their health and wellness goals. TASTEVA M Stevia Sweetener is touted as achieving “an unsurpassed sweetness profile comparable to sugar at high sugar replacement (>8SEV).” 

Tate & Lyle’s stevia offering is supported by the April 2017 partnership with Sweet Green Fields (SGF), one of the largest global stevia suppliers. With this partnership, Tate & Lyle became the exclusive global distributor of Sweet Green Fields’s portfolio of stevia-based ingredients. In May, Tate & Lyle acquired a 15 percent stake in SGF who launched two new products – Optimizer Stevia 4.10 and Intesse Stevia 2.0 – that allow for lower cost in use, to help address consumers’ desire for healthier and more natural options.