CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a National Stage of International Application No. PCT/EP2018/064495, filed on Jun. 1, 2018, which claims priority to European Patent Application No. 17174035.0, filed on Jun. 1, 2017, the entire contents of which are being incorporated herein by reference

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method of producing a food or beverage product, in particular to a method for forming agglomerated proteins in an ingredient composition. The invention also relates food or beverage product comprising aggregated proteins comprising micellar caseins and whey proteins and plant protein aggregates.

BACKGROUND

It is known to provide texture and mouthfeel to food and beverage product by protein aggregation and there continue to be a need for food and beverages products exhibiting nutritional balance of macronutrients while delivering great taste and texture.

CN104489097A describes a process to obtain a heat convection drying protectant preparations for lactic bacteria or probiotics. It consisting in heat treating at 60° C. a milk preparation enriched with calcium in order to induce protein aggregation and subsequently submitting the preparation to a mechanical homogenization treatment.

WO07040113A describes the production of an ingredient exhibiting high content in milk-derived complex lipids. It is obtained by precipitating the protein fractions of butter serum at pH 4.0 to 5.0 in presence of calcium and filtering the supernatant in order to concentrate the complex lipids.

WO 06065135 A2 disclosing the production of a free divalent cations-rich liquid food product in which 20% of the lysine residues carried out by the proteins have been glycosylated in order to increase their resistance to aggregation in presence of calcium. Therefore, WO 06065135 A2 is related to preventing protein aggregation in presence of divalent cations, calcium among others.

US20130011515 A1 is describing a process for the production of a milk protein concentrate which is enriched with whey proteins. Skimmed milk is heated in the pH range 6.5-7.0 in order to promote aggregation of whey proteins together with caseins. The heated product is subsequently submitted to filtration in order to concentrate protein aggregates and to remove lactose.

D. L. Van Hekken et al. [Rheology and Microstructure of Chemically Superphosphorylated Whole Casein, 1997, J. Dairy Sci. 80 2740-2750.] describe the effect of addition of free calcium on the viscosity of superphosphorylated caseins. It was shown that the viscosity of a 4 wt % superphosporylated caseins (190% phosphorylation) increased by addition of 30 mM calcium at pH 8.4. This study does not relate to mixes of plant and dairy proteins. Further, for mixes of plant and dairy proteins the superphosporylated caseins are not desirable as chemically modified and expensive ingredient.

C. Holt described in his paper [An equilibrium thermodynamic model of the sequestration of calcium phosphate by casein micelles and its application to the calculation of the partition of salts in milk, 2004, Eur. J. Phys., 33, 421-434] reported that the amount of free calcium ions in bovine milk at pH 6.70 was 10.2 mM and that this value decreased to 8 mM when milk pH decreased to 6.0. This paper is not concerned with plant proteins.

I. R. McKinnon et al. [Diffusing-wave spectroscopy investigation of heated reconstituted skim milks containing calcium chloride, 2009, Food Hydrocolloids, 1127-1133] investigated the effect of calcium chloride addition to skimmed milk reconstituted at 10 wt % in the pH range 6.0 to 7.2 and the subsequent effect on viscosity when the milks were heated for 10 minutes at 60, 75 and 90° C. They reported a critical instability pH of 5.9 for the milks upon heating at 90° C. for calcium chloride content up to 10 mM. This paper is not concerned with plant proteins.

L. Ramasubramanian et al. [The rheological properties of calcium-induced milk gels, 2014, J. Food Engineering, 45-51] determined the impact of calcium chloride addition into full fat milk (3.5% fat) upon heating at 70° C. It was reported that calcium chloride addition below 12.5 mM was leading to viscous dispersions while higher calcium chloride concentrations induced formation of stronger gels. Interestingly, pre-treatment of the milk at 90° C. for 10 minutes before calcium chloride addition and subsequent heating at 70° C. was leading to the strongest gels. Gel formation is not desirable in many semi-solid food and beverage products. This paper is not concerned with plant proteins.

T. Phan-Xuan et al. [Tuning the structure of protein particles and gels with calcium or sodium ions. 2013, Biomacromolecules, 14, 6, 1980-1989.] reported when treating 100% whey protein (□-lactoglobulin) with an addition of calcium chloride to □-lactoglobulin at pH 7.0 it was leading to microgels or gel formation upon heating at 68 or 85° C. when calcium content was 5-6 mM for a protein concentration of 4 wt %. Again gel formation is not desirable in many semi-solid food and beverage products.

N. Chen et al. [Thermal aggregation and gelation of soy globulin at neutral pH. 2016, Food Hydrocolloids, 61, 740-746] have reported that soy protein isolate was forming fractal aggregates upon heating at neutral pH at temperatures ranging between 50 and 90° C. for protein concentrations ranging between 5 and 9 wt %. No impact of calcium on protein aggregation is described.

J. M. Franco et al. [Influence of pH and protein thermal treatment on the rheology of pea protein-stabilized oil-in-water emulsions. 2000, JAOCS, 77, 9, 975-984] reported that a concentrated 65 wt % sunflower emulsion stabilized by 6 wt % pea protein was exhibiting a viscosity increase upon heating at temperature above 70° C. for up to 60 min and that the highest viscosity increase was obtained at pH around the isoelectrical point of the pea proteins, i.e. pH 5.3.

The interaction between micellar casein and pea proteins has been described by J.-L. Mession et al. [Interactions on casein micelle-pea system (part 1): heat-induced denaturation and aggregation. 2017, Food Hydrocolloids, 67, 229-242.] Upon heating dispersions of micellar caseins and pea protein isolate between 40 and 85° C. at pH 7.1 for a weight mixing ratio of 1:1 and a protein content of 1.8 wt %. It was concluded that caseins were not involved in pea protein aggregation while they were contributing to the dissociation of pea protein subunits. This document does not disclose the effect of free calcium.

C. M. Beliciu and C. I. Moraru [The effect of protein concentration and heat treatment temperature on micellar casein-soy protein mixtures. 2011, Food Hydrocolloids, 25, 1448-1460] studied the effect of heating 1:1 micellar caseins and soy protein isolate at temperatures ranging from 40 to 90° C. for 15 minutes at pH 7.0 for protein content ranging from 2 to 15 wt %. They found that the flow properties of the mixtures were lower than for the soy protein isolate at the same protein concentration. In addition, authors claimed that calcium was precipitating out of solution and did not contribute to the overall charge of the aggregates, nor to texture/viscosity.

The prior art teaching shows that although viscosity increase may be obtained with calcium addition in milk products, it is not disclosed that a viscosity increase of mixes of dairy/plant proteins may be obtained. It is also well known from the prior art that gelling effect may be undesirable in food production. Furthermore, the pH of the product may vary and influence process however may lead to instability of the product. The prior art does not show how to provide food and beverage products delivering desirable taste and texture.

Thus, there is a need for food and beverages products exhibiting nutritional balance of macronutrients while delivering great taste and texture.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

It is the object of present invention to provide a food or dairy/plant protein product with improved texture and mouthfeel.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides the improvement by the use of milk/plant protein-based aggregates by specific heat treatment in the presence of a specific concentration of added divalent cations.

In a first aspect, the invention relates to a method of producing a food or beverage product, comprising the steps of:providing an ingredient composition comprising micellar caseins, whey protein and plant protein having a pH of 5.9-7.1, preferably 6.2-6.8, and having a concentration of 1 to 15 wt. % of total proteins, and wherein the composition has a micellar casein to whey protein ratio of from 90/10 to 60/40 anda micellar caseins and whey protein to plant protein ratio of 80/20 to 20/80,adding divalent cations to provide a concentration of 2.0-10 mM free divalent cations in the ingredient compositionand subsequentlyheat treating the ingredient composition to form agglomerated proteins comprising micellar casein, whey protein and plant proteins, the agglomerates having a size of 5 to 50 microns as measured by D(4,3) mean diameter as measured by laser diffraction.

The present invention uses milk/plant protein-based aggregates that are generated upon heat treatment in presence of added-free divalent cations in order deliver optimum sensorial properties while allowing a reduction of the total fat content in the product. In addition, the described invention enables formulation of dairy-based texturized products without the use of additional stabilizers or hydrocolloids.

In preferred method of the invention the heat treatments the ingredient composition is subject to a temperature of 80°-125° C. for a period of 30-900 s or at a temperature of 126° C. or above for 3-45 s. In a more preferred embodiment of the invention the ingredient composition is subjected to a temperature of 80°-100° C. for a period of 0.5-4 min or a UHT (Ultra high temperature) heat treatment above 135° C. for 3 to 45 s.

A method according to claim1, wherein the ingredient composition is heat treated at a temperature of 80°-125° C. for a period of 30-900 s or at a temperature of 126° C. or above for 3-45 s.

In a second aspect the invention relates food or beverage product obtained by a method described above.

In a further aspect the invention relates to a food or beverage product comprising aggregated proteins comprising micellar casein, whey and plant protein aggregates, wherein the product has a pH of 5.9-7.1, preferably 6.2-6.8, and having a concentration of 1 to 15 wt. % of total proteins, and wherein the composition has a micellar casein to whey protein ratio of, 90/10 to 60/40 and a micellar caseins and whey protein to plant protein ratio of 80/20 to 20/80, a concentration of 2.0-10 mM free divalent cations in the ingredient composition, agglomerated proteins comprising casein, whey protein and plant proteins, the agglomerates having a size of 5 to 50 microns as measured by D(4,3) mean diameter as measured by as measured by laser diffraction.

