Bay State Milling may have been around for a long time (the family-owned company was founded 123 years ago), but the Quincy, MA-based ingredient company works to be forward-thinking, working to develop and launch new products to meet the needs of its bakery clients.

The company has three business units, each honed in on a different area:

• Wheat milling, focused on refined and whole-wheat flour (including organic), and rye and durum semolina
• Non-wheat milling, which includes gluten-free ingredients such as ancient grains, edible seeds, and pulses
• Varietal solutions, which focuses on novel plant-based ingredients

Recently, the company promoted Colleen Zammer to the position of vice president of varietal solutions growth and corporate innovation. The 30-year industry veteran will bring her expansive knowledge and abilities to heading up commercialization for proprietary ingredients like HealthSense and SowNaked; she also will oversee R&D innovation for the company’s range of ingredients.

To learn more about the company’s development and innovation efforts, her work in the industry, and current and emerging trends, we recently connected with Zammer.

Jenni Spinner. Please tell me about you and your career path.

Colleen Zammer: My career has been a long and winding road that has ultimately brought me to where I am today at Bay State Milling. For a new Food Science grad from Framingham State University, Massachusetts was not the thriving food start-up and manufacturing city that it is today. However, I was introduced to a consulting firm called Arthur D. Little that had a food consulting practice, so I sent off my resume and they hired me right out of school! I had a 16-year career there that started with benchtop product development projects for large and small food & beverage companies, and over time I grew into roles of business development and management. 

When the firm came under new management in the early 2000s, it was time to try something new. From there I worked for the global alcohol beverage company Diageo, where I learned how major CPG companies developed and launched innovation and renovation products. I also learned that I preferred smaller, private or family-owned companies and working on the supplier side. I worked for a couple of other ingredient companies focused in the health & wellness space until I was introduced to Bay State Milling in 2010.

JS: What accomplishments you are proudest of?

CZ: In my career, I am proudest that I have never been afraid to try something new, and I have learned something in every role I have ever been in, and hopefully have taken that learning and created value to every role that came next. The food & beverage industry is small, and relationships are important. I am pleased to still have a broad and deep network of people that I have worked with in every company and role in my career.

JS: What about Bay State Milling made joining the company appealing to you?

CZ: I was introduced to Bay State Milling by a prior colleague. She understood the transformation that Bay State Milling was poised to undergo, and she understood my diverse background in food science and food business, so when she reached out, I was immediately intrigued by the opportunity. 

The introduction was followed by a breakfast meeting with our then-president and COO, now CEO, Pete Levangie, during which he excitedly told me about where he wanted to take Bay State Milling. The vision of the future was one of differentiation in an otherwise commodity industry, to generate growth by bringing the core purpose of providing healthful and affordable food choices for consumers to life through innovative plant-based ingredients. I was hooked!

JS: Could you please share your perspective on trends in functional ingredients? What are some of the most interesting or noteworthy demands the bakery industry is seeing from consumers and clients?

CZ: With regard to functional ingredients, the term “functional” can mean different things depending on the application you are speaking about. Given the breadth of Bay State Milling’s offerings, we provide ingredients to a broad array of customers and finished goods. But, generally speaking, a major trend in functional ingredients is that fewer ingredients are better from the perspective of the consumer. This is the clean label trend, where consumers want to see as few things on a label as possible and preferably, they see things that are familiar and they can pronounce. 

In the past, flavor and texture creation, enhanced nutrition, microbiological control, and shelf-life extension have been the product of ingredients created by technologies geared toward separation, isolation, concentration, and chemical modification. 

Today, as consumers look for fewer and simpler ingredients, we need to build that into more wholesome, minimally processed ingredients. For Bay State Milling, that means focusing on whole food plant-based ingredients, and ensuring that all the parts of the plant have a role to play in enhancing flavor, texture, nutrition, shelf life, etc. This has led us to partner across the value chain from seed to flour to help formulators achieve more with less. That includes breeding crops that inherently contain more protein and fiber so those things don’t need to be added to a food to make it nutritious, it also includes selecting varieties of wheat that have inherently strong gluten properties so that vital wheat gluten, an expensive additive, can be eliminated from baked goods. This trend goes beyond baking and applies to other plant-based products including pasta, snacks as well as meat and dairy alternatives. Each application is looking to deliver more with less and it is requiring new approaches from growers, suppliers/processors, and finished goods manufacturers alike. 

 The ingredients under the umbrella of Varietal Solutions from Bay State Milling are specific examples of meeting customers’ needs to execute against these trends. HealthSense high-fiber wheat flour is a very noteworthy ingredient for the baking industry. It is a well-known fact that about 95% of the US population fails to consume enough fiber on a daily basis, and it has been deemed a nutrient of concern for a very long time. The USDA has attempted to close this fiber gap by encouraging people to make 50% of their grain consumption whole grains. This would include whole wheat bread, whole grain pasta, etc. 

However, whole wheat flour and whole grain food consumption really has not risen dramatically over the last decade or so, and the presumed reason is that consumers don’t really care for the taste. Whole grain foods contain fiber from bran, which results in darker color, a less cohesive mouthfeel, bitter flavor from tannins, and off flavors during shelf life due to the oil content from germ. HealthSense high-fiber flour is a variety of wheat that was bred to have the fiber delivered through the white part, or starchy endosperm, of the wheat kernel. Through conventional breeding, this variety of wheat has shifted the types of starch in the wheat to deliver substantially more resistant starch– starch that is not --digested in the small intestine and remains intact until it reaches the large intestine where it becomes food for our resident bacteria, aka “the microbiome.” This type of fiber is known as prebiotic fiber, and as the bacteria that comprise our microbiome feed on this fiber, they produce by-products called short-chain fatty acids that are known to have positive benefits such as immune support, inflammation reduction, improved glucose and mineral uptake by the body. 

HealthSense high-fiber wheat flour is primarily sold as a white refined flour and is used to make white flour goods such as white bread, pasta, noodles, pizza crust, etc, that taste delicious, perform extremely well, and delivers a good or excellent source of gut-nourishing fiber without sacrificing any of the taste & texture consumers love. Not only is it a win in terms of nutrition and taste, but manufacturers can also work with this in the same way they use traditional wheat flour, and in some applications, it adds additional functional benefits such as improved water absorption and greater extensibility which can extend shelf life of baked goods such as tortillas, pizza crusts, and even bread. 

A great example of this in the marketplace is a category of “feel-good” snacks including ice cream cones and cookies under the Enlightened brand. HealthSense high-fiber wheat flour was used in place of traditional flour to reduce the total carbohydrates while maintaining a superior indulgent taste and texture. It’s precisely the “no compromise” approach that this ingredient was born to deliver. Another example of a staple food made with HealthSense high-fiber wheat flour is a range of pasta offerings by Three Farm Daughters. With a nod to family, farming, and agriculture, they claim “we made pasta better”. Better taste, texture, and satisfaction with 78% more fiber, 13% more protein, and 10% fewer calories from only two simple ingredients, wheat flour, and semolina. 

One other noteworthy ingredient, which is focused more on the gluten-free realm, is called SowNaked Oats. high protein, mindfully farmed oats. SowNaked is a hull-less (“naked”) variety of oat that is grown using Purity Protocol Gluten-Free standards (<5 ppm gluten) and contains approximately 40% more protein than traditional oats. The protein story alone is exciting as consumers seek as much plant-based protein as they can get. However, because the oats are hull-less, they have a number of other benefits: There is no transportation or disposal of hulls, and they require much less heat processing to deactivate fat-degrading (and off-flavor-producing) enzymes, which results in approximately 50% fewer carbon emissions than traditional oats. That’s a great sustainability story! 

When it comes to traditional applications such as oatmeal or granola, the SowNaked flakes absorb water a little differently, which makes them hold their shape better and impart a chewier texture, and they also have a sweeter, more nutty flavor compared to conventional oats which many consumers describe as “cardboardy”. Brands including Kodiak Cakes have enhanced the nutrition and texture of their chewy granola bars with SowNaked oats. SowNaked oats may also be used to produce the fastest-growing plant-based beverage, Oatmilk. The combination of the higher crude protein in the SowNaked variety, coupled with minimal heat processing results in higher levels of soluble protein, which translates into more protein per glass of Oatmilk vs. milk made from conventional oats-a real win for plant-based beverages competing against dairy milk as a protein source.

The ingredient trends discussed here extend to the home baking space as well. The “baking needs'' aisle of the grocery store has come alive in recent years with flours and baking mixes that appeal to consumers who are seeking enhanced nutrition in the fresh foods they make at home. While Bay State Milling’s focus has always been in the business-to-business space, we are thrilled to see our unique ingredients entering retail through our customers' brands. For example, we have been collaborating with Wheat Montana to launch a new line of flour including our BeneGrain sprouted whole wheat flour, HealthSense high fiber wheat flour, and our Neapolitan style pizza flour.

JS: You’ll also be overseeing ingredient R&D for the company. What do you see as the most important challenges and areas of focus in functional ingredient research?

CZ: One of the greatest challenges for functional ingredient research at Bay State Milling is the ability to look ahead and anticipate new products and therefore problems that customers will face so that we have a solution ready when they need it. We value the relationships we have with our customers and go out of our way to provide service and solutions to set ourselves apart and to listen closely to what they tell us so we can anticipate those needs. Being in the agricultural ingredients space and focused on whole food ingredients that require mother nature to do some of the work for us is also a challenge, but we believe the market will reward our efforts.

JS: Do you have any interesting brand partnerships, new products, or other projects in the works/on the horizon you can tell us about?

As far as new areas of interest for Bay State Milling, one area that we are exploring is our pulse ingredient portfolio. Pulses, including chickpeas, lentils, and peas, are protein powerhouses, and when combined with grains, provide complementary amino acids that result in much higher protein quality than either plant category alone. Many pulses have proven functionality as a flour in a variety of applications and the category is just getting started. We have been collaborating with experts that bring passion and world-class genetic research focused on breeding new varieties of pulses with superior nutrition and functional attributes. We are excited about the differentiation we can create through the optimal combination of varietal selection, milling, and customer collaboration.