Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Most Canadians take pride in the fact that Canada is a major world supplier of high quality wheat, exporting more than 16 million metric tons annually. However, what many do not realize, including many producers, is that for over the past decade, more than 50% of Canada's wheat exports are shipped to South East Asia and used for the production of noodles. When purchasing this product, consumers focus on two major quality criteria: appearance and texture. The vast majority of scientific research on noodles has been directed to appearance and the factors that influence it. However, even great looking noodles will not be accepted if they have an undesirable texture. This proposal is directed to understanding the other primary noodle quality parameter, texture, since texture is an increasingly important parameter influencing purchases of Canadian wheat, especially with the shift towards more industrial manufacturing of noodles in Asia. Understanding the technological needs, and thereby influencing the buying strategies, of the larger and highly mechanized Asian noodle manufacturers forms the objectives of this project. We will precisely characterize the texture of noodles made from Canadian wheat flours by comprehensively evaluating their mechanical properties to understand the changes in structure and properties of the dough that take place during noodle processing. Secondly, we will use new ultrasonic technologies to interrogate noodle properties directly during processing so that we can offer enhanced control of the dough sheeting conditions that are critical to all optimizations of noodle texture. And, thirdly, we will exploit the knowledge gained from the mechanical characterization of Asian noodles to optimize texture of fibre-enriched noodles, thereby supporting the sales of Canadian wheat in a growing product sector of the Asian market - the functional foods market. Our goal is to incorporate this understanding and these techniques within Canada's sophisticated quality-focused wheat breeding program to show to Asian noodle manufacturers that Canadian wheat is the quality import of choice for satisfying their customers' requirements.