Company: Cargill

Website: www.cargill.com

Ingredient Snapshot: In response to growing consumer demand for simple, familiar ingredients, Cargill is launching a portfolio of functional native starches under the new SimPure brand. SimPure offers food and beverage manufacturers tailor-made, functional native starches that deliver the simple ingredient label consumers want, along with greater process tolerance, shelf life and storage stability. The product line will be available worldwide.

"Consumers increasingly want to know what is in their food and are turning to product labels to better inform themselves," says Simon Waters, global food starch leader, Cargill. "Cargill's SimPure functional native starches, coupled with our integrated formulation and technical expertise, will allow food manufacturers to deliver on consumer demands for label-friendly products with great taste and texture.

For years, modified starches served as the workhorses of the texturizing world, solving a host of food processing dilemmas. However, as part of changing consumer preferences, many customers want to remove modified starch from their product labels. 

"Through extensive research to identify new starch sources, create new processing techniques and evaluate new combinations of native starches, Cargill's food scientists developed the SimPure line, offering innovative solutions to these difficult texturizing challenges," explains Denis Palacioglu, EMEA Starch product line director, Cargill.

The first product in the SimPure portfolio, SimPure™ 99560, was created for use in culinary and convenience applications, such as frozen foods. A custom starch blend of various botanical sources, SimPure 99560 can replace modified starches in frozen-ready meals, without compromising taste, texture or appearance.  

Cargill recognized using a single starch often falls short in replicating the mouthfeel, texture and stability provided by modified starches in frozen prepared entrée sauces. The company's food scientists instead created a tailored system of starches, which deliver comparable performance. The result, patent-pending SimPure 99560, provides optimal freeze-heat stability in mild processing conditions, preventing water separation and producing stable functionality over time. It offers good viscosity in processing and microwave cooking stability. Equally important, SimPure 99560 maintains mouthfeel and texture, delivering on consumers' sensory expectations. 

"As a global leader, we have the most diverse texturizing portfolio, backed by world-class formulation experts and a reliable supply chain, enabling us to create custom solutions like SimPure 99560 to address the application and marketplace needs of our customer partners," said Waters. "As we expand the SimPure product line, our food scientists will be creating similar ways to use familiar ingredients that provide the functional, label-friendly options our customers require."