SPECIAL ARTICLE By BUHLER
Driving the market for plant-based meat with
PolyCool
1000
Bühler announces the launch of PolyCool 1000, a high-performance cooling die that, together with an extruder, provides an efficientand flexible solution for food producers creating tasty and sustainable plant-based meat or fish alternatives.
The way in which we produce food today is not sustainable. To meet the nutritional needs of the world’s growing population while adopting more sustainable practices, a major shift is required. Proteins derived from plants play a key role in driving nutritional diversity. Increasing the percentage of plant-based proteins in food products requires processing expertise. “Bühler has for many years supported food producers in developing innovative products that offer an attractive alternative to animal meat – products that are similar in terms of fiber structure, color, texture, and taste,” says Christoph Vogel, Head of Market Segment Proteins & Ingredients. As the market’s leading extrusion solution provider for food products, Bühler is wellpositioned to support this growing market. 22
ASIA FOOD BEVERAGE THAILAND
Flexibility to achieve meat-like textures Extrusion is a highly versatile process that can be applied to a wide range of plant-based raw materials to create tasty meat or fish alternatives. An integral part of the process is the cooling die. With PolyCool 1000, Bühler adds a new high-performance cooling die to its range. Cooling dies work with extrusion technology to enable the creation of attractive meat or fish substitutes with structures and textures that closely resemble animal-based meat products such as chicken, fish, or beef. With the PolyCool 1000 cooling die in combination with an extruder, it is possible to produce wet-textured proteins based on a wide range of raw materials including soy, pulses, oilseeds, upcycled side streams like brewer spent grains, as well as newer ingredients such as microalgae, at throughputs of up to 1,000 kilograms per hour.
