Market challenge
Up to 50% of texture is lost by pumping and shearing in a regular stirred yogurt process. To compensate for texture losses during processing, yogurt producers are adding protein, stabilizers and thickeners to the milk base upfront.
Building texture this way is expensive and has great impact on total cost – in fact, texturizers may account for up to 50% of total cost of a white yogurt base.
Chr. Hansen’s solution
The best way to reduce the level of texturizers and realize cost savings is by preserving the texture that is naturally built during fermentation. A method to obtain this is through a warm filling process – a gentle process where yogurt is kept at fermentation temperature until filling.
Until now it has been impossible to put this technology into practice, because no available culture had a stable enough pH to handle it; the yogurt would get too acidic.
With YOFLEX® ACIDIFIX® you can now use a warm fill process. Due to its unparalleled pH stability yogurt producers can both produce very mild yogurt bases while preserving texture naturally built from fermentation.