Techlink :: Tech Practice :: Food and Bio-related

In November 2008, Christchurch bakery Cookie Time launched a gluten-free chocolate-chip cookie. The development of the cookie is a good illustration of the process food technologists use when identifying, developing and bringing a new product to market.

Entrepreneur Michael Mayell founded Cookie Time in 1983. From humble beginnings – Michael used his mother's kitchen to perfect his recipe – Cookie Time has grown into one of the success stories of the New Zealand food industry. In 2008, the Cookie Time factory at Templeton, just south of Christchurch, baked 44 million cookies. Michael Mayell credits this success to his cookies filling a previously unrecognised gap in the market. Before Cookie Time, consumers shopping for a snack could choose between chocolate and confectionary bars on the one hand and pies, sandwiches, and filled rolls on the other. Mr Mayell's new cookies slotted neatly in the middle.

By identifying a niche and serving it well, Cookie Time has done well; the company is gambling the same strategy will see its foray into the gluten-free market pay off. Demand for gluten-free products has surged in recent years with the increased diagnosis of Coeliac (or Celiac) disease. Coeliac disease, commonly termed gluten intolerance, is a reaction to the gluten in wheat, rye, and barley products (and in some cases oats). Gluten is a class of storage proteins found, together with starch, in all grains. 'Gluten' is a composite of prolamin proteins called gliadins, and glutelin proteins called glutenins. In a wheat seed, gliadin and glutenin make up about 80% of the protein present.

People with Coeliac disease are allergic to the gliadin proteins in gluten. Their immune systems do not recognise gliadin protein as food, but as an invasion to be combated by attacking the lining of the intestines. It is a difficult condition to diagnose. With 250 different symptoms, ranging from mild indigestion to severe anaemia, Coeliac disease is described as "one of the great mimics in gastroenterology". The disease has no cure, but avoiding the consumption of gluten can resolve its symptoms and reduce associated health risks.

The range of gluten-free products has grown in recent times, but consumers have been poorly served in terms of the taste and texture of the new products. By many accounts, these products have been crumbly imitations of their 'real' counterparts.

In the mid 2000s, Cookie Time recognised this as an opportunity. Cookie Time General Manager Lincoln Booth explains: "After tasting the gluten-free biscuits available it was clear that gluten-free consumers were expected to accept products that were somewhat dry and lacking in taste. There was clear room for someone to set the bar higher and provide gluten-free consumers with genuinely great-tasting products."

This was reinforced by Cookie Time's customers themselves, through emails suggesting the company start producing a gluten-free version of its chocolate chip cookie.

But before the company could commit itself and capitalise on the opportunity, some big questions had to be answered:

The company kept a 'watching brief'. Research revealed the market was reasonably large, poorly served, and growing. Although it is claimed that Coeliac disease is widespread, something like 97% of Coeliac sufferers remain undiagnosed. US research suggests the number of Americans with the disease is one in every 133 – just under 1% of the US population. Others believe the legion of undiagnosed 'silent Coeliacs' would raise the count to one in every 83. The US market for gluten-free foods and beverages is around US$700 million, and is expected to reach US$1.7 billion by 2010.

Furthermore, although gluten-free products are largely bought by Coeliac sufferers, overseas experience shows that very often the entire family of a Coeliac will switch to gluten-free products to avoid buying different versions of the same goods. A family may also switch as a preventative step because the disease is hereditary. Some consumers opt for gluten-free in the hope of preventing their young or unborn children from developing food allergies. Others migrate from the organic and natural foods and other market segments. In part, this shift is being driven by the belief that certain major allergens and food components exacerbate a range of health conditions.

Overall, the New Zealand market is showing similar trends and, whatever the exact figures, it seemed likely to be large enough at current levels, and almost certain to grow.

Cookie Time sampled the gluten-free baked products available in New Zealand and Australia, and found them "dry, tasteless, crumbly, and cardboardy"; the market was clearly poorly served. All the research suggested that this market would be a good one to get into but, from the very beginning of the project, the company recognised that it had to get things right from the outset. The company's hard-won reputation and iconic status was at stake. "We made a firm commitment not to release a gluten-free cookie until we had one that would genuinely taste as good as our core range of cookies."

The brief that food technologist Grace Ling received was simple: formulate a gluten-free cookie that tastes just as moist, rich and delicious as the company's other cookies. It was also extraordinarily challenging. To understand just how challenging, it is necessary to appreciate the role gluten plays in baking.

If gluten didn't exist, somebody would have had to invent it. Gluten is an extremely functional ingredient – it has lots of properties and can do lots of things; this is particularly so with wheat gluten – without it, bread would not be the bread we know and love. When wheat flour dough is kneaded, glutenin molecules cross-link to make a sub-microscopic network and associate with gliadin, which contributes viscosity and extensibility to the mix. If such dough is leavened with yeast, sugar fermentation produces bubbles of carbon dioxide which, trapped by the gluten network, cause the dough to swell or rise. Baking coagulates the gluten which, along with starch, forms a heat-set skeleton, stabilising the shape of the final product. The glutenin in flour also contributes chewiness to baked products, including cookies.

Grace's challenge was to replace this proteinacious skeleton with something else yet retain the texture and 'mouth-feel' of wheat-containing baked goods.

Grace also had to consider manufacturing and post-production issues. The absence of gluten (or a gluten substitute) in a dough results in a liquid batter that cannot be processed using conventional production-line baking equipment. Products created without gluten or a substitute typically have poor handling and moulding properties, and other post-baking quality defects such as poor shelf life. So, while developing a safe, cost-effective system to manufacture the cookies, Grace had to also find a way to give the product an acceptable shelf life without using inordinate amounts of preservatives or other artificial ingredients.

The seeds of most flowering plants contain stored protein to nourish embryonic plants during germination, but true gluten, with gliadin and glutenin, is limited to certain members of the grass family, notably wheat, barley, oats and rye. Because it is the reaction to gliadin that causes Coeliac disease, food technologists seeking gluten-free alternative ingredients must search for gliadin-free glutens or something that behaves in the same way.

To replace gluten-containing flours, manufacturers have turned to naturally gluten-free starches and flours such as those made from rice, tapioca, potato, arrowroot, nuts and legumes. However, these alternatives often create as many problems as they solve. Many have distinct flavours and eating qualities. Some replacement starches or flours can be very high in viscosity and exhibit very cohesive texture when baked. But their most fundamental drawback is their protein content. Typically, wheat flour's protein level is around the 10% level, plus or minus a few points, depending on what the intended end product is. The protein content of rice flour is a bit below 6%. It works as an alternative, but because of its low protein content more flour must be used, resulting in a gritty final product. Rice's blandness partially makes up for its grit factor and low protein. But corn, soy, and even potato flours have a much more assertive taste, hard not to recognise. Pea flour, Grace says, tastes unmistakably vile. Attempts to rectify a taste issue may compound the problem rather than solve it.

'Stealth' glutens

Because it is such a functional ingredient, gluten is widely used in the food industry and often in unexpected ways. Chewing gum, for example, receives a dusting of wheat starch, and crisped-rice cereal may contain a gluten-containing binder. While the quantity of these so-called 'stealth' glutens – those in flavour carriers, binders, fillers and emulsifiers – can be minute, it's enough for some Coeliacs to leave a product on the shelf.

Eliminating these glutens may be relatively simple because their presence is often just an accident of formulation, a consequence of cost, habit or their coincidental association with other ingredients. As a result, their role in the finished product is almost always readily replaced, and reformulation is often more the identification and removal of the gluten sources, rather than the restoration of lost function.

Manufacturers can supplement gluten-free flours with other ingredients, such as starch and gum products, that replace the functionality of gluten. Gums, like gluten, retain moisture, control water, entrap air, thicken, suspend, and form films. Gums also help stabilise the proteins in a formula, lengthening shelf life by lowering the staling rate. Some gums are heat resistant and maintain their viscosity at baking temperatures. Combinations of gums may be used to impart a range of characters to a gluten-free dough or batter.

To identify the ingredients themselves, Grace obtained a range of gluten-free cookies and examined the ingredient lists printed on their packaging. After identifying the good and bad qualities of each product in terms of shelf-life, taste, texture, colour, etc., and correlating these with the listed ingredients, Grace identified a 'starter' list of possible gluten-free ingredients. Some were commercially unavailable in New Zealand, others were artificial and couldn't be used – this was not negotiable. Cookie Time is a quality-driven company and an uncompromising attitude toward natural ingredients is "a company cornerstone, even though it makes our tech team's job harder".

Grace spent a lot of time talking with suppliers and reviewing the technical details and functionalities of their gluten-free alternative ingredients, and their costs. She quickly realised why gluten-intolerant consumers had to be prepared to pay a premium. Some natural gluten-free ingredients, such as gums, are relatively expensive, and even in small quantities can significantly add to the final price of the product, although, in some cases, costs can be reduced by pairing a gum with a modified gluten-free starch (something Cookie Time ruled out for a number of reasons, but primarily because it would alter the sensory quality of the dough). The cookie niche is still relatively small, so the company couldn't factor-in the economies of scale available in its conventional products.

After identifying her ingredients, Grace systematically baked batches of cookies, modifying and refining her recipe as she went, homing in on a workable commercial formulation. The process of 'trial and error' doesn't sound too scientific but it works. It's a balancing act – too low a concentration of gluten alternatives and the cookies are crumbly, too high, and they are overly chewy. Grace also had to balance functional prerogatives with commercial ones.

The recipe was progressively refined using in-house, rather than consumer, testing. In-house sensory testing is highly expedient, and can save a lot of time and money in the development process, while also being highly accurate and exacting. "Cookie Time staff, who 'live and breathe' cookies and are exposed to quality issues all the time, are much more discerning and attuned to the subtleties involved," Lincoln Booth says.

The brief required that the cookies have a shelf life of at least three months. With preservatives off the ingredient list, Grace had to manipulate the other factors influencing freshness. Besides the ingredients themselves, packaging is a critical factor. For packaging designers, two key parameters have a big influence on shelf life: oxygen and moisture permeability. 'Accelerated shelf-life studies' – packaging a product and exposing it to controlled conditions that, within weeks, mimic months of shelf time – play a key role.

At this stage in the development process, design, advertising and marketing planning began.

It's one thing to bake cookies in the controlled environment of a test kitchen, but a successful formulation must work under commercial baking conditions. In this case, Grace had to be doubly sure that her formulation was robust enough for manufacture because a contract manufacturer would be used to produce the cookies – the Cookie Time plant is not certified gluten-free.

Research suggests that for people with Coeliac disease the maximum safe level of gluten in a finished product is probably less that 0.02% (200 parts per million) and possibly as little as 0.002% (20 parts per million). At those levels, even a tiny amount of wheat flour can cross-contaminate a gluten-free product. Many foods contain gluten, but do not indicate it in their ingredient list, because gluten is not in the formulation of the product, but is used during the preparation (or manufacture) of some of the listed ingredients. An example of this is the use of wheat flour to dust conveyor belts in production facilities to prevent food from sticking to them during processing. The definition of gluten-free varies from country to country, but in New Zealand it means the product is free of gluten.

Using a contract manufacturer involved several risks, Lincoln Booth says, and the decision wasn't taken lightly. Grace's research had produced valuable intellectual property (IP). Using a contract manufacturer exposed this IP to theft and imitation. Although the company went to some lengths to protect its investment, Cookie Time figured that even if another company did coat-tail on its research and produced a similar product, the imitators wouldn't have the brand strength to capitalise fully on it. (Cookie Time's dominance of the big cookie market hasn't gone unchallenged. Around 20 companies, including Griffins and Ernest Adams, have produced similar but not identical products, and in 1996 pirated cookies in almost identical packaging to Cookie Time's appeared in Hong Kong.)

Besides risking IP loss and imposing additional costs, the decision to partner-up with a third party manufacturer involved relinquishing full control over product quality. Initially, Grace spent a lot of time on-site fine-tuning the manufacturing process. This involved some modifications to the plant. Grace also had to ensure the contractors understood and followed ("to the letter") all the manufacturing processes she had designed. The most critical steps involved mixing and depositing; the battering, pressing and cooling times also needed close attention. With the Cookie Time brand at stake, Grace had to stand firm on quality.

Cookie Time's new gluten-free cookies turned out to be a hit with consumers. In the three weeks following the launch of the new cookie, the company received "50 or so" positive email messages about the new product, a response Lincoln Booth describes as "phenomenal", "highly unusual" and "staggering". Ongoing feedback has been just as positive.

The development project was more complex than anticipated and the company is keen to draw breath before committing to other gluten-free products. Given the huge size of the international gluten-free market, it is obvious the new cookie has real export potential. Cookie Time exported to Australia for seven years, but withdrew in 1994 to focus on the local market. In early 2008, the company decided to re-visit export opportunities, as it had been receiving an increasing number of overseas requests for product. The company is currently working with a few New Zealand-based exporters to develop opportunities in Asia and the Middle East and pursuing some opportunities directly.

Food technologists have to be aware of food labelling requirements in other countries if their company is interested in developing export markets. This is a fraught field, as the world has yet to define a universal 'gluten-free' standard. For international trade purposes, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint effort of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses, declares that no more than 0.03% of a gluten-free food's total protein can come from wheat, barley, rye or oats. Codex is in the midst of revising this standard, and is unable to reach a consensus in doing so. But until it does, it sets its limit at no more than 20ppm (20mg/kg) gluten in a naturally gluten-free product, and no more than 200ppm (200mg/kg) in a product "rendered gluten-free in processing" (such as purified wheat starch or alcohol distilled from rye or wheat).