Alternative emulsifier: Bayn touts oat lecithin for sugar-reduced chocolate

Swedish supplier Bayn Europe claims oat oil is an alternative, clean label emulsifier providing better yield stress in sugar-reduced chocolate than polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR) and soy lecithin.

The company has created concept milk and dark chocolates and pralines containing sugar replacers from Bayn and oat oil from supplier Swedish Oat Fiber.

The firms will present the concepts at trade fair Food Ingredients Europe (FiE) later this month.

What are the advantages?

Lucy Dahlgren, CEO of Bayn, told ConfectioneryNews: “Oat lecithin may act as a replacer of both PGPR and soy lecithin, because it can fulfill functions of both.”

PGPR is commonly used in milk chocolate, compound chocolate and coatings to ease molding and reduce cocoa butter content, while soy lecithin is often used to improve viscosity.

“Oat lecithin achieves a better yield stress compared to soy lecithin,” said Dahlgren.

The stress point is when the liquid chocolate mass starts to move.

“This is very important in molding for example so that air bubbles are leaving the form easily,” said Dahlgren.

“Oat oil can also replace other emulsifiers in non-chocolate applications as it is a fairly versatile emulsifier,” she added.

Concept products

In trials, Bayn created a dark chocolate containing its own sugar replacer – a composition of polydextrose, maltitol, inulin, and stevia – along with Swedish Oat Fiber’s oat lecithin, a vegetable oil derived from oats.

The formulation is available HERE.

The concept product was fiber-enriched and contained 96% less sugar, 65% less carbohydrates and 17% less calories versus a similar chocolate containing 50% sucrose.

Oat lecithin was added at between 0.3% to 1% in dark chocolate trials, but more may be required if a product contains more water-soluble ingredients.

Clean label

Bayn claims the oat oil is natural, label-friendly and e-number free.

The oat oil should be labelled as 'emulsifier' in order to fulfill requirements in the EU for chocolate containing other fats.

It can be labeled as “oat oil” in non-chocolate applications.

Dahlgren said: “A submission to the European Commission is on-going and a feasibility study for Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status [for the US market] has been finalized without any critical issues.”

How does it taste?

Bayn claims the taste and texture is equivalent to chocolate with soy lecithin.

“Bayn application center in Sweden is open for public, our developments are often tasted internally by our professional developer and also by trained consumer taste panel. Bayn also performs e-sensory analysis for comparison study,” said Dahlgren.

Concept chocolates and pralines will be on display at FiE in Frankfurt from November 28-30, 2017.