In a world of increasing competition it is important for all foods produced to be of high and repeatable quality. In order to accomplish this, the continuous testing of products from development until final production, and even after there, is essential.
According to Bourne1, texture, appearance and flavour are the three major elements of food acceptability.
Texture analysers produce objective results which are all quantifiable. This has obvious advantages, not to mention legal implications. The use of an instrument that gives immediate results enables users to track progress from an early developmental stage. With quantified results the manufacturer may be able to make valid claims in support of a product.
It is a misconception that texture analysis needs to be complicated. Most analysis on baked products only does hardness and springiness a tests. Some may also study cohesiveness, but the remaining texture profile analysis calculations (eg adhesiveness, gumminess and chewiness) are seldom done.
In order to facilitate a comparison between measurements the CCFRA2 have published recommendations for a standardisation of instrumental methods for the texture assessment of baked foods.
Millers, product developers, bakers and plant breeders are all directly or indirectly producers of baked goods and will benefit from texture analysis as a means of improving their products. Texture testing should be carried out on meat, dairy, fruit and many other products and it can employed for some of the following:
* Quality control: monitoring of the process; control of supplied raw material; as an integral part of ISO9002.
* Product development: testing of different ingredients; shelf-life trials.
* Product evaluation: improvements; matching; texture profile analysis.
* Process control: at-line process control; process optimisation.
TexVol Instruments has launched an instrument which was initially developed specifically for baked products. However, with the wide variety of probes on offer it can also be used for testing of many different foods. Its robust design makes it equally useful on the production floor as in the laboratory. Analysis of the results is automatically calculated and displayed.
For the average tester of baked products it is not necessary to have too complex an instrument. It is more important for the samples tested to be uniform as this will have a big impact on the results. Special tools have been developed to facilitate the sampling of baked products. A slicer produces repeatable slices in different thicknesses. A mechanical corer is able to extract repeatable cores of different diameters. The CCFRA favours the use of cores, if they are of good quality. This has been difficult to achieve for the unskilled using manual equipment. The TexVol corer has changed all that. The TexVol total system makes it very easy to obtain reproducible samples, and hence to achieve good texture results without difficulty.
enquiry no 18
TexVol Instruments is based in Viken, Sweden. www.texvol.com
