Milling & Baking News - April 5, 2022 - 38

TUES | 04 05 202 2
Sesame emerges as the 'elephant
in the room' for bakeries
CHICAGO - Wholesale baking companies
face a major challenge and potential
sanitation nightmare now that sesame
has been named the ninth major alleren,
requiring it to be declared on food labels
beginning Jan. 1, 2023.
That was the conclusion of presenters
during the American Society of Baking's
(ASB) BakingTech, March 1-3 in Chicago.
Specifically, the ramifications of how
to control and clean pesky sesame seeds
on high-speed production lines is quickly
sinking in, even though the looming deadline
remains months away.
" Sesame is the elephant in the room, "
said Nathan Mirdamadi, senior food safety
specialist, Commercial Food Sanitation, an
Intralox company. " It's definitely going to
be a problem, especially for bun bakers. "
Mr. Mirdamadi pointed out most
high-volume bakeries rely on hundreds of
feet of belting that potentially can be difficult
to clean after sesame seeds are applied
to bread, buns, rolls and other baked foods.
On these production lines, sesame seeds
typically are used as a topping on buns
and rolls after proofing, creating a challenge
with precisely placing seeds on the
products and a potential allergen risk if the
seeds blow off during baking in the oven or
during cooling, slicing and packaging.
" This has been our approach so far, " Mr.
Mirdamadi said. " Going piece of equipment
by piece of equipment, determining
what is required to get this piece of equipment
allergen-free, and almost developing
a line of attack for that particular piece
of equipment. As you go through the line,
once you determine how much and what
is required to get the level of cleaning that
you need, then you can look at how you
can optimize it. "
Pan cleaners often rely on brushes to
remove debris after baking and before the
pan recycles back to the makeup area.
" You may determine that to get all of the
seeds out of a brush, it's going to require
X amount of time, " Mr. Mirdamadi said.
Probiotics in baking show promise
thanks to spore-forming strains
CHICAGO - Sophia Leung sees the potential
of probiotics in baked foods within
her own household.
" It's a lot more appealing to have probiotics
in something like a muffin than probiotic
supplements, or as my husband calls them,
'those awful, horse-sized pills,' " she said
March 3 during her presentation at the
American Society of Baking's BakingTech
in Chicago. " Baked foods also can add a lot
of variety to the traditional dietary supplements
and also the typical yogurt product. "
Ms. Leung, a food science lab manager at
Enzyme Innovation, a division of Specialty
Enzymes and Probiotics, gave details on
38 MILLING & BAKING NEWS
how spore-forming probiotics, because of
their survival rates in high-heat processing,
are an ideal option for baked foods.
Growing consumer interest in probiotics
" That's your starting point. You know
that it's feasible. Once you have that, you
can now say, 'Now, how can we optimize
this? Should we change the design of these
brushes so we can mount them and take
them out very easily? Should we have dedicated
brushes?' "
He added that the issue of sesame as an
allergen shouldn't have come as a surprise
for the baking industry.
" When it comes to hygienic design, if
you were building a bakery within the past
five to eight years, and you didn't at least
consider the likelihood that sesame would
become an allergen when building a plant
in the US, you probably missed out on a
big opportunity to make improvements in
your design because we all knew it was an
allergen in Canada, " Mr. Mirdamadi said.
Other ingredients that are currently
considered allergens in other countries
eventually could be declared as allergens
in the United States.
" Regulations, very rarely, do they get
any easier, " he said. " They always get more
strict. So, if you're building a plant today,
we already know that in the UK celery is an
allergen. In Canada, mustard is an allergen. "
The Food Allergy Safety, Treatment,
Education and Research Act that was
signed into law in April 2021 made sesame
a major allergen, along with milk, eggs,
fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat
and soybeans. MBN
was evident in a forecast from Grand
View Research, San Francisco, showing
the global probiotics market will have
a compound annual growth rate of 7.5%
from 2021 to 2030, reaching a size of
$112.21 billion. Probiotics balance gut
bacteria, limit colonization of pathogens
and are important for digestive enzymes,
Ms. Leung said. Research has shown that
probiotics, besides providing digestive
benefits, also may improve mood, alleviate
stress and improve sleep, she said.
The Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations and the World
Health Organization define probiotics
as " live microorganisms, which, when
administered in adequate amounts, confer
a health benefit on the host. " Probiotics
must survive and reach the site of action,
must prove to be beneficial for the host
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