Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Food ingredients that promote health and reduce the risk of disease are becoming increasingly popular, and thefood industry is being challenged to redesign traditional foods for optimal nutritional value. Non-digestible oligosaccharides (NDOs) possess important physiological properties that are beneficial to the health of consumers, including non-cariogenicity, a low calorific value and the ability to stimulate the growth of beneficial bacteria in the colon. Many NDOs are not digested by humans. This property makes them suitable for use in sweet, low-calorie diet foods, and for consumption by individuals with diabetes. In addition to physiological properties, NDOs provide several physicochemical benefits, which make their use as food ingredients particularly attractive. NDOs are water soluble and mildly sweet (typically 0.3 to 0.6 times as sweet as sucrose). Their relatively low sweetness is useful when a bulking agent with reduced sweetness is desirable to enhance other food flavours. The higher molecular weight of NDOs (as compared to mono- and disaccharides) provides increased viscosity, leading to improved body and mouthfeel. BioNeutra is a manufacturer of high quality NDOs. The company currently supplies food manufacturers with VitaFiberTM IMO (isomaltooligosaccharide), and has demonstrated traction in the wholesale market with the ingredient showing utility in a wide variety of processed food products. The goal of this project is to develop recipes where the replacement of sucrose with IMO results in products of very similar characteristics and with good consumer acceptance. The outcomes of this project should support BioNeutra's expansion into the retail and direct-to-consumer markets by showcasing IMO's versatility and application in a variety of end products.