Dough hydrator said to cut input costs and boost quality

Increasing dough hydration, said Anne Lionnet, marketing manager for bakery at LCI, enables bread makers to achieve a direct cost saving on the bowl recipe, or increase the number of products by bowl, in addition to “an improvement in the link of water modification to cooking scale.”​

At the same time, greater dough hydration will benefit the end product quality as it will result in moister bread, she added.

By adding Hydra 0.2% to dough, a baker can gain +4 kg water for 100 kg flour, according to LCI. Lionnet notes this would result in a raw material saving of 2 per cent per kg, 2 per cent more breads per bowl and a 2 per cent saving on cost per unit sold.

LCI also recently launched another new clean-label ingredient – an alternative to calcium propionate or potassium sorbate for bakery products called Bakesafe.

Lionnet told FoodNavigator.com last year that the French firm has been developing a range of applications in this regard to help bakers boost their clean label credentials, particularly as research shows that a significant number of European consumers regularly look at product labelling - especially additives.

“Food manufacturers want to answer to the pressure of the press and also consumers who have some suspicions around E numbers. ​

The recommendation is to reduce or really suppress all the E numbers on the labels using ingredients less processed, authentic and well known by the consumer.”​

Company trials, continued Lionnet, demonstrated “very positive results”​ when incorporating Bakesafe into dough compared to calcium propionate.

"Trials on the kinetics of mould growth showed there was no significant difference from using Bakesafe in the recipe in fact, Bakesafe gave a better result than the control."​

The dosage for Bakesafe is 0.1-2.5 per cent of the weight, or in substitution, depending on the initial quantity of calcium propionate.

According to LCI, there is no significant difference on the rheology of the dough and no modification of the proof time. However, depending on the recipe, there can be a slight increase in the elasticity, but which, LCI said, is easily correctable.