Company: American Key Food Products 

Website: www.AKFPonline.com

Ingredient Snapshot: American Key Food Products (AKFP) has introduced to the American market a new brand of rice flours especially designed for excellent gluten-free baking. Mel Festejo, COO of AKFP, announced the signing of an exclusive distributorship agreement with Mitsui & Co. Ltd. for superfine white and brown rice flours manufactured by Kumamoto Flour Milling Company in Japan. 

These high quality, specialized rice flours are produced using a proprietary manufacturing process that distinguishes the flours from currently available domestic and imported rice flours. Kumamoto’s unique milling process yields exceptionally uniform, superfine particle sizes with the size distribution confined within a narrower range. The same process also keeps the degree of starch damage to much lower levels than in similar rice flours.

“These flour qualities result in smoother and softer textures and greater volume in gluten-free baked products,” says Festejo. “We have achieved excellent results in gluten-free cakes, breads and muffins, dramatically shown in comparisons with baked goods using other well known flours in the same recipes. In a white bread application, for example, volume increases by as much as 25 percent when Kumamoto’s rice flours are used in place of other finely milled rice flours following the same recipe. The soft texture we have produced with these new rice flours is neither too dense nor too porous, resulting in superior gluten-free eating qualities. Muffins exhibit a nice, domed crust; donuts, a smooth outer layer with a non-greasy, appealing crumb structure.”

Kumamoto Flour Milling Company has been a major producer of high quality flour products for nearly 70 years.