“Acrylamide reduction of up to 80 per cent, without affecting the crispiness and taste in chips and snacks is feasible,” said Inge Evers, Purac senior application technologist leading the project research.

Purac’s Puracal® Act is a product based on calcium lactate that was introduced to several potato chip producers in 2008 and at trade events. Today’s results indicate another win in the constant challenge of acrylamide reduction.

“Puracal Act allows more flexibility in the production process because it does not require extra time or special temperatures to be effective. Typical variations in pH or moisture content in the snack process will not affect the performance of Puracal Act in acrylamide reduction,” Evers said.

How it works

Puracal Act is added to the blanching water. The mechanism of the product is that calcium has the ability to complex asparagine (a key step in the formation of acrylamide) and therefore reduce its availability to form acrylamide.

Calcium plays an important role in improving texture of potato based products. The calcium interacts with the pectin in the cell walls, resulting in a crispier product.

Puracal Act has been designed for potato chip and French fries industries as well as extruded snacks.

Puracal Act adds to the company’s existing acrylamide reducing Puracal product line, but is substantially more effective than existing Puracal, according to Hein Hamelijnck, Purac director of sales for food, writes Sarah Hills from FoodNavigator.com.

The results of extensive research by Purac, which was executed in co-operation with the Agrotechnology & Food science group in Wageningen, the Netherlands, shows that Puracal Act reduces acrylamide formation and improves the overall quality of potato-fried products.

Purac is a subsidiary of CSM, a global player in bakery supplies & food ingredients.

The company launched calcium salts in 2007 to cut acrylamide. This was part of an overall change in strategy direction to offer concepts that provide solutions to its customers’ formulation needs and problems.