No doubt about it, the baking industry is taking a turn for the healthful. At the same time, consumer pallets are becoming more sophisticated. Taken together, these trends make for a changing role for fats and oils.

“I see 2011 as being the year of focus on healthy eating,” says Tom Lehmann, director, bakery assistance, AIB of Manhattan, Kan.

In January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services released the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the federal governments nutritional guidelines for health and disease reduction. Those guidelines put more focus than ever on healthful eating choices.

Customer choice
Many oil producers have stepped up with palm oils to replace hydrogenated oils that include trans fats. Trans fat is unsaturated fat with trans-isomer fatty acid. They may be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, but they’re never saturated. After the FDA began requiring food makers to list trans fat on the Nutrition Facts panel of their products, manufacturers moved to decrease the amount of this type of fat in their products, in part by turning to palm oils.

But one drawback is that palm oil contains a significant amount of saturated fats; 50 percent as compared to 20 percent for trans fat, says Bob Wainwright, technical director for Cargill Inc.’s oils and shortenings division, Minneapolis.

Bakers can choose from a number of fats and oils; some are formulated to reduce saturated fats below 50 percent; some promote sustainable practices, as above, others are extremely cost effective. Bakers need to cater fats and oil choices to their consumers. It all depends on what consumers in any region or target demographic are seeking.

“If a baker went from trans fat to something based on palm and saw an uptick of saturated fats on panel, what can be done about that?” Wainwright says. “A lot of bakers don’t feel any pressure to do anything about that because they’ve arrived at a product that delivers the eating experience their customers expect and they no longer have hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated on the label.”

But other bakers will want to reduce saturated fats, he adds.

To that end, fat and oil producers have been introducing oils to the market that reduced saturated fat content of baked goods.

For instance, in 2013 Cargill plans to introduce its Clear Valley low saturate canola oil with 4.5 percent saturated fat content. Testing oil will be available later this year. Bakeries that use the fat may be able to make a low saturated fat or saturated fat free nutrient claim on their product, Wainwright says.

Canola oil itself has the lowest saturated fat content among all commercially traded fats and oils, at 7 percent, he adds. Soybean oil, for instance, contains about 15 to 16 percent saturated fat.

Bakers themselves will need to decide whether replacing canola oil with the Clear Valley oil in recipes to yield a slightly lower saturated fat content is worthwhile, he adds.

“In some cases it will be, in some cases it won’t,” he says. “But this is another tool people may want to take advantage of depending on how much saturated fat they want in a product.”

IOI-Loders Croklaan, Channahon, Ill., introduced its Sans Trans VLS line that helps reduce saturated fat content without increasing cost, says Gerald McNeill, Ph.D., director of research and development at the fat and oil producer.

Sans Trans VLS 40 and Sans Trans VLS 30 are designed to reduce saturated fat content while maintain all purpose shortening functionality, he says. Users can save up to 10 percent of the cost of using palm oil through use of the products because they’re using fewer products for same functionality as compared to palm oil.

Ironically, the technology for the VLS line was born in the 1980s, when Loders Croklaan was looking for a product to meet the low-fat demands of the time, McNeill says. The company developed emulsified products that allowed for a 50 to 70 percent fat reduction in foods.

It turned out, the general public wasn’t willing to trade taste for very low fat.

With the move away from trans fats, the company took a second look at the formulas, this time reducing saturated fat by a more restrained 10 to 15 percent. The VLS line is a drop-in solution that requires no product reformulation, McNeill says.

“No one is looking for a huge fat reduction, like 50 percent as they tried to do in the 80s,” McNeill said. “Generally people are probably using the lowest fat available products already, but with this you can go down another 10 to 15 percent with no change in texture.”

The choice in lower saturated fat and no trans fat oils and fats exists, as Wainwright says, but finding the correct one for an individual wholesale baking market is a new art and science onto itself.

Eco choice

As bakers move to palm oil to eliminate trans fats from their products, consumers have become aware of environmental issues surrounding palm-oil production, says Wainwright.

“That’s an issue or opportunity or challenge that’s surfaced and will be with us into the near term as people think more about this,” he says.

Some producers of palm oil in countries that include Indonesia, Malaysia, and Columbia have been accused of causing damage to the environment, including deforestation, loss of habitat for endangered species, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, according to information from The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, formed in 2004 by several large players in the palm oil industry to promote sustainable agriculture and address the environmental impact of palm oil.

The RSPO has delineated standards to be met by palm growers and oil suppliers to ensure the oil is produced in an environmentally acceptable, sustainable method. With the standards in place, some oil suppliers have been working with their own suppliers to ensure they meet the new standards, Wainwright says.

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