How to control stability in plant-based drinks

Advanced control

The unsaturated fat in plant-based drinks demands strong emulsification ingredients, especially when long shelf-life products are produced. The introduction of the UHT technology has been incremental in achieving a shelf-life of up to a year, depending on the composition of the product.

Palgaard’s survey confirmed this is an area where consumers would like to see improvements.

Respondents were asked if they were happy with the length of time plant-based 'milks' could be used after opening and 5.5% said they were not happy. This figure was highest in France at 9%. Palsgaard’s stabiliser and emulsifier blends can help keep the product stable and they can considerably extend the shelf-life of plant-based items.

To address formulation and production challenges and exercise an appropriate degree of control over particle suspension and fat stability properties, a careful mix of emulsifiers and stabilisers is recommended. Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, made from edible vegetable fats and oils are commonly used as emulsifiers in non-dairy beverages to stabilise the emulsion and reduce the fat separation. They also improve the creaminess of the drink.

Stabilisers are water-soluble polysaccharides extracted from land or marine plants or from micro-organisms. Adding stabilisers helps create the network required to suspend particles, increase viscosity, and improve mouthfeel. They are used for thickening and stabilising properties.

Taking a holistic view

Suppose you’re experiencing stability problems with your non-dairy alternative drinks. In that case, the first thing to do is to check the formulation balance to ensure your recipe doesn’t exceed the expected range for each ingredient type. Next, take a deeper look at the raw materials and your production process, preferably together with emulsifier and stabiliser experts on hand to help you set up and make sense of testing.

With vegetable-based drinks (particularly cereals such as rice and oats) you may, for example, need to pay extra attention to upstream and downstream homogenisation, countering the effects of their starch content. For drinks produced using protein isolates, a holistic view of the product is recommended as i.e. protein salts and emulsifiers in interactions give the right, stable emulsion.

Tasty and nutritious: Coconut-Almond drink

When working with different raw materials we face specific challenges with each one, and so blending them together can present concerns with things like mouthfeel and texture. One of the areas we wanted to look at with plant-based beverages is to get good stability in the liquid, so for this first recipe – Coconut-Almond – we had to work with fibres from the protein sources and we needed to ensure we could disperse the heavy particles to prevent sedimentation.

Another issue with this flavour combination is that we had to deal with high levels of fat, and for a beverage, this can mean the mouthfeel is too creamy. We needed to ensure the final product had good viscosity and stability.

We were able to achieve this by using our new Palsgaard® RecMilk 143. The emulsifier-stabiliser blend made of mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids (E471), sodium alginate E401 (standardized with sucrose) and gellan gum (E418) helps suspend the heavy particles and ensures the mouthfeel is pleasant for consumers.

Coconut-Almond is a blend which is likely to appeal to today’s health-conscious consumer because it’s high in healthy fats, which can help lower cholesterol. In addition, almonds are high in fibre, which protects the intestinal wall.

Plant-based indulgence: Rice Milk with Cocoa

The second concept, Rice Milk with Cocoa, is an example of how sedimentation can pose a challenge in the plant-based sector because when cocoa powder is added to a beverage the particles often sink to the bottom over time.

The other issue with this recipe is that rice and oat 'milks' can be very difficult for us to work with because they are high in starch, and this causes high viscosity. Rice can also cause creaming. So, we needed to find a way to suspend the cocoa particles in the liquid to prevent sedimentation and to improve the mouthfeel. But we also needed to get the texture right to make sure the beverage is pleasant to drink.

It’s a delicate balance between the stabiliser and emulsifier to suspend the particles and reduce the viscosity, but we were able to create this synergy between all the components in this recipe using Palsgaard® RecMilk 143.

The Rice Milk with Cocoa concept does not contain lactose and offers some additional health benefits from the rice, such as Omega 3, calcium and B-12. It is a UHT product with a long shelf-life of six or seven months.

Luxurious coffee: Almond milk-based coffee creamer

Creating a lactose-free option which still has the mouthfeel and creaminess of coffee creamer is challenging in the plant-based category, so we spent some time developing this third concept.  

The final recipe is an Almond Milk-based Coffee Creamer. Heer Palsgaard® RecMilk 143 helped ensure that when it is added to coffee, it still provides the creaminess and mouthfeel of dairy, while also offering a hint of almond flavour to enhance the beverage.

Experience plant-based Palsgaard

In most situations, the best and most reliable path to solving problems with existing recipes or developing new ones is to join forces with specialists in emulsifiers and stabilisers. And, as the inventor of the modern commercial emulsifier, Palsgaard is ideally positioned to help. We’ve been supplying both dairy and non-dairy producers with high-quality emulsifier systems for decades.

At well-equipped application centres around the world, our teams of application specialists work alongside you to determine the optimal mix of raw materials, recipes and processes to achieve a stable product with the right sensory qualities. And we have the equipment needed to work with pasteurized, UHT-treated and sterilised products, making shelf-life studies covering the entire shelf-life of the beverage.

Palsgaard has developed a series of plant-based recipe concepts to help demonstrate how its emulsifiers and stabilisers can help customers create new products. These concepts form part of our latest plant-based campaign – Experience Palsgaard – which aims to bring together its unrivalled technical knowledge with its network of regional application centres and the latest consumer insights.

To find out more, click here to Experience Plant-based Palsgaard for yourself.