NIR Helps Ojah With The Development and QC Of Plant-Based Meat Replacements
Ojah from Ochten in Gelderland develops and produces sustainable, plant-based protein products that are used in meat substitutes. The company, which has grown up with products that have a chicken-like texture, regularly expands its range with new concepts. To this end, not only are the perception parameters such as taste, bite and mouthfeel considered, but also chemical, such as moisture, protein and fat content, which are determined with NIR.
Plenti ProFiber™, dat is gebaseerd op dezelfde eiwitvezel als die van de plantaardige stukjes kip, kan heel gemakkelijk met andere producten worden verwerkt, zoals vis.
“Gosh, it looks just like chicken!” According to tradition, those were the words of CEO and one of the Ojah founders Frank Giezen in 2009 when he tasted the first pieces of a material that intended to have the same fiber structure as meat. The pieces were made by means of wet extrusion (‘high moisture extrusion’) of protein-rich soy flour. Water and the protein mass are mixed under high pressure and temperature to form a liquid, sticky mass. This mass is then pressed through the extruder while rotating. By cooling the nozzle of the extruder tube, the protein mass solidifies again into a material with, in this case, a firm, juicy and fleshy structure. This result is related to the combination of a certain friction and shear in the extruder. Together with process parameters such as temperature and pressure, these form the blacksmith’s secret.
Growth
Thousands of tons of plant-based meat substitutes are now produced at Ojah every year on five production lines. For a long time now, pieces of Plenti® no longer just roll off the conveyor belts. There are also the Heppi® ribs, which are made from pea flour, water and herbs. These look and taste like spare ribs. They are free of additives, gluten free and low in carbohydrates, and have a protein content of 25%. They do well on the barbecue, just like spare ribs, but because they have no bone, they can also be served on, for example, a sandwich. In the twelve years of Ojah’s existence, the market for meat substitutes has changed enormously. In the beginning, there was a particular need for high-quality end products, such as plant-based chicken pieces. With the growing popularity of meat substitutes, the demand for a mix of textures is also increasing, with food manufacturers using Ojah’s individual protein fibers as an ingredient in their end products. You can see this, for example, in an increasing range of plant-based alternatives for fish, where the semi-finished products from Ojah provide the desired texture and nutritional value. Another application is the combination of multiple textures in one plant-based product, somewhat similar to tendon, muscle and fat tissue in minced meat. In that regard, there are also opportunities to link up with the growth market for cultured meat, which is in the near future, in which the plant-based texture can function as a carrier. A hybrid strategy that can also be applied to ‘normal’ meat: meatballs that are half plant-based.
Ojah is responding to this with the development of Plenti ProFiber™, which is based on the same protein fiber as that of the plant-based pieces of chicken, and can be easily processed with other products. The protein fibers provide a non-homogeneous structure, allowing product developers to create high-quality meat alternatives using techniques already used by the meat processing industry. Ojah sees that the food manufacturers the company works with are increasingly in need of a product that they can process into an end product themselves. Where in the beginning 100% was invested in end products, the company now strives for a 50/50 split between ingredients and end products.
Ojah now has five lines where, among other things, sustainable, plant-based products with a chicken-like texture are produced.
Laboratory
About three years ago, Ojah set up his own laboratory, which functions as an R&D and quality lab. The application laboratory (the NPD kitchen) has been there since the start of the company. New formulations and recipes for marinades are being developed there. The R&D team consists of four people, including junior R&D scientist Rebecca Steppan, who has been employed since March 2020, immediately after her master’s internship at Ojah as part of the Food Technology program at Wageningen University. Her work is very varied. “The work for R&D is often organized in projects. For example, testing and characterizing a new raw material or investigating how an adjustment in the process turns out. I am currently working closely with engineering to optimize a new machine. To find out whether they do what we want, we carry out all kinds of tests on the products. What happens to the texture, color, taste, smell; how is the mouthfeel, the bite? These are partly sensory tests: looking, feeling, smelling. Very important also in the context of product development. We often have tastings of new products with our application colleagues.”
Rebecca Junior R&D scientist in the lab. Ojah has had its own laboratory for more than three years, which functions as an R&D and quality lab
Quality Control
In addition to the sensory tests, the laboratory also analyzes parameters such as moisture, protein and fat content. These analyzes are also relevant for quality assurance, in particular the entry control of the raw materials. “Before we start producing, we want to be sure whether a batch is not too wet and whether the protein content is correct. During the process we determine the moisture content. This is important for the process settings in the next step, the marinating. And of course we also determine these parameters in our end products,’ explains Rebecca. The end products, which are produced 24/7, are also subject to sensory tests as part of quality control. “Every morning we receive the products that have been produced and then we check whether they are nice pieces, whether the bite and mouthfeel are good and you can experience that fibrous structure. We do that in turn. In my case, I start every Monday with a round of tastings!”
NIR
The input and quality checks on protein, fat and moisture in particular have been performed in the laboratory on the ProxiMate NIR of Büchi Labortechnik for over a year now. “Until then, samples for such analyzes were sent to a contract lab. That was not an ideal situation, because in some cases we had to wait weeks for the results. During my internship at Ojah I was involved in the selection process. We first investigated which technique is most suitable for our applications. NIR came out on top there. Although this required a larger investment than for other techniques, such as moisture measurement, you can measure several parameters with them, which is also very useful for future determinations. We approached two suppliers for the selection of the NIR device. The choice has been in favor of Büchi. In addition to the robustness and ease of use, the color measurement integrated into the instrument also appealed to us.”
Calibration Line
Where Büchi can provide databases with measurements for pre-calibrations for more mature markets in the feed and food industry, such as animal feed, cheese and meat(!), in this case there was no ready-made calibration line available. Because this concerns a set of unique products in a relatively young market, there is simply not enough measurement data available to arrive at a usable database. Rebecca therefore had to get to work herself. “In the first place, that means collecting a lot of samples for the reference measurements. Because we have no special equipment in our lab outside the NIR for measuring protein, moisture and fat, all these samples were sent to an external lab. These are considerable numbers. I used 100 samples for moisture content alone. I also measured all those samples with the NIR.” A calibration line must then be created based on the reference and NIR measurement results. To do this, the instrument’s software includes the AutoCal function, which helps non-specialists find the optimal correlation based on the reference values and the measured spectra. “That position provided me with good support. And if I didn’t understand something, I could easily contact Büchi application specialists for help. They also pointed me to other functions that allow you to analyze the calibration line in detail and adjust things, such as not including outliers. I can now handle it well, but I am still considering to delve even more into this matter by following the chemometrics course that Büchi offers.”
Plenti ProFiber – The Plant-Based Connector
Never Finished
With the completion of the calibration process for the existing products, the calibration work never comes to a standstill. “Every time we use a new raw material, a new calibration line is needed anyway. But calibration work also needs to be done with the existing raw materials. If you change raw material supplier or even with a new crop of soybeans, in our case, differences can arise. It is also recommended to replenish the calibration database with new samples several times a year; that also makes it more robust.”
Press on the Button
Where Rebecca is the only one who calibrates, the NIR is mainly used by colleagues from production and logistics to perform the measurements. “Initially I also did the measurements for production, but that is not always efficient, also in connection with wearing suitable work clothes. I wrote an SOP for colleagues, which they can use to perform the measurement without errors. That works fine, not least because there is not much that can go wrong: place a petri dish with the sample on the sample holder, press start and the results roll out within a few seconds. This way, production also knows immediately whether the process is going according to plan!”
