Consumer & regulatory rejection of trans fats has caused the food industry numerous problems in formulating replacement products with identical functionalities. Palm oil is the replacement fat of choice in numerous commercial products because of its high solid fat content that provides good functionality. However, palm oil is high in saturated fat that is also a potential health concern for consumers. Furthermore, consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental and social concerns of palm production including loss of habitat for endangered species, erosion of waterways, etc. Structured lipids, especially diglyceride (DAG) oils, are a potential solution to replace palm oils but they are produced using costly and environmentally unfriendly “enzyme in solvent” systems are have also had shortcomings when used in certain food applications. Additionally, the health benefits of DAG oils may offer significant improvement over palm oil. This research will determine the feasibility of a novel method of DAG oil manufacture – enzymatic catalysis in supercritical carbon dioxide – using soybean oil, which we propose will be a cost effective and “green” solution to current solvent systems and will allow for improved health and food product formulation attributes compared to current options in the marketplace. Deliverables include a soy-based DAG oil product, produced in a scaleable, optimized manufacturing process with demonstrated environmental and health benefit and equivalent or superior performance in frozen dough applications, which are available to food, companies in key markets. These are complete with performance evaluation specifications for manufacturing and validated consumer appeal. Demonstrated pilot-scale processing data will remove risk and speed adoption across a broad segment of the food industry.
