Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Fat or oil is basic ingredient other than butter in emulsion...
Reexamination Certificate
1995-06-19
2001-11-27
Paden, Carolyn (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Fat or oil is basic ingredient other than butter in emulsion...
C426S602000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06322843
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a process of forming a fat continuous spread having up to 80% of a fat phase and having a trans fatty acid level of less than 10%. The process involves recirculating an emulsion which has been at least partially crystallized into an emulsion stream which is exiting from a scrapped surface heat exchanger unit (A-unit) in a production line to modify residence time and increase crystallation rate by seeding and provide an improved spread product.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The prior art processes of forming a fat continuous product involved the mixing of an aqueous and a fat phase at room temperature (greater than 30° C.) or above and then cooling the formed emulsion in one or more scrapped surface heat exchanger units (A-units) to cool the emulsion and start the crystallization process by removing the heat of crystallization. The cooled emulsion then passes from the A-unit into one or more C-units where crystallization continues to substantially form beta prime fat crystals of the product. Depending on the desirable residence time additional C-units and B-units may be added to the production line the typical residence time for fat continuous products having a trans fatty acid level of greater than about 10% is 30 seconds to 5 minutes.
Lately, consumer trends have been towards spread products which spread easily, have a good melting behavior in both the mouth and on heated food items, contain a relatively high proportion of unsaturated fatty acids and at the same time have a relatively low trans fatty acid level, preferably lower than 10%. In general butter has a trans fatty acid content of about 7 to 8%.
The higher the level of trans fatty acid in the fat phase of a spread, the shorter the residence time needed during processing to crystallize the fat to form the desirable characteristics of the spread. As the trans fatty acid content is reduced, residence times must be increased in order to avoid post crystallization of the fat during storage which leads to brittle and unspreadable products. Adding additional units to the production line increases cost and removes flexibility of modifying the process line configuration.
There therefore exists a need for a process to prepare a spread having less than 80% fat and less than 10% trans fatty acid levels, which has exceptable consumer properties such as good spreading and good organoleptic characteristics.
Another object of the invention is to provide an improved process for forming fat continuous products which is both economical and yet flexible enough to be modified to achieve desirable residence time in line in processing fat spreads with varying levels of trans content.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a novel process for producing a fat continuous spread which has up to 80% fat, less than 10% trans fatty acid content and provides the required residence time in line for the transition of alpha to beta prime fat crystals by recirculation of a partially crystallized cooled emulsion to a cooled feed stream. More particularly, the emulsion is cooled in an A-unit to a temperature below the temperature required to form alpha phase crystals of the fat and then passed into a crystallizing unit (C-unit) or C-units for a residence time required to convert the fat crystals from their alpha phase to beta prime phase. Following the transition of the fat crystals to the beta prime phase, the emulsion is cooled again to a temperature of at least the temperature of the first A-unit and then the emulsion is recirculated back into the partially crystallizing emulsion stream exiting the initial A-unit and referred to as the cooled feed stream. The residence time in the C-unit required to form the proper fat crystals in the low trans fatty acid containing fat is related to the throughput of the emulsion through the in line production system as well as the recirculation rate of the cooled emulsion exiting a second A-unit. The recirculation step into the cooled emulsion stream provides the longer residence time required for spreads having less than 10% trans fatty acids while avoiding costly production process.
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Gunstone 1983 Lipids in Foods Chemistry, Biochemistry & Technology Pergamon Press Oxford p 147-155.*
Copending applications: Huizinga et al.—Ser. No. 08/557,551—Filed Jan. 14, 1995—Pending.
Thurman et al.—Ser. No. 08/496,856—Filed Jun. 19, 1995—Pending.
Sassen—Ser. No. 08/437,191—Filed May 8, 1995—Pending.
Reddy et al.—Ser. No. 08/491,663—Filed Jun. 19, 1995—Pending.
Barmentlo Bart
Reckweg Freek
Reddy Podutoori Ravinder
Schuurman Johannes Henricus
Paden Carolyn
Squillante, Jr. Edward A.
Van den Bergh Foods Company, Division of CONOPCO, Inc.
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