SBIR-STTR Award

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop an alternative for high-calorie, nutrient-poor, palatable foods. This proposal will create a nutritionally dense ingredient portfolio, based on a novel chickpea dough, with broad application in processed foods. The set of ingredients will consist of crunchy, high-protein, higher-fiber, and low-calorie ingredients with broad applicability in the processed food space; this could potentially impact population health, including prevalence of type II diabetes, obesity, and their co-morbidities. Such a change in ingredient sets will also result in a large commercial impact of this research. Economic benefits include the development of new products, brands, production and processing equipment to optimize the use of these novel, chickpea based, nutrient dense ingredients. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project focuses on the evaluation of a novel chickpea dough to create a nutritionally dense ingredient portfolio with broad application in processed foods. Generally, foods produced with nutritionally dense ingredients have strong flavors and poor acceptance, but alternatives require processing that is slow, inefficient, and costly. To solve this challenge, we are evaluating a novel microwave technology. The goals of the proposed innovation include: identification of formulations and processing parameters for several ingredient applications, demonstration of consumer sensory acceptance, and validation of scale-up viability through cost analysis. Technical goals include: Prediction modeling of heating patterns and identification of shapes, sizes, and ranges of processing parameters; drying trials to identify a versatile dough formulation for multiple applications; shelf stability tests; consumer acceptance tests to prove market viability; and nutritional analysis to fully characterize the final products. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

The broader impact of this SBIR Phase II project is in providing an alternative to the calorically dense and nutritionally poor processed foods that have proliferated in the American diet due to their price, convenience, palatability, and shelf-stability. This project advances a nutrient-dense crunchy ingredient platform based on legumes and having the ability to customize shape, texture, and nutritional profile to meet a broad variety of crunchy applications in disparate categories. Due to their neutral flavor, these crunchy ingredients can be flavored with various flavor systems, providing a low-calorie, high-fiber, and high-protein alternative to consumer favorites such as graham crackers, cereals, chips, granola, and cookies. Providing healthier alternatives to traditionally unhealthy consumer products has the potential to beneficially impact public health, preventing diet-related chronic diseases such as obesity, type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other related co-morbidities. This SBIR Phase II project focuses on the formulation and processing development necessary to expand a legume-based ingredient platform and overcome the significant technical hurdles in scaled manufacturing. The primary innovation lies in a novel method of structuring fibers and proteins into a crunchy and aerated matrix through both formulation and downstream processing. This project addresses the variation in product behavior and quality caused by batch size and manufacturing line configuration. The dough on which these ingredients are based differs highly in its rheological properties in comparison to the gluten-based doughs for which most manufacturing lines are configured. To compete with commodities, a variety of manufacturing lines with different drying technologies must be evaluated in their ability to maximize throughput while minimizing input costs and meeting product quality requirements. The major technical objectives of this Phase II project are: 1) Expand ingredient platform variants to achieve specific product characteristics to support customer claims, ingredient labeling, physiological impact, and costs; 2) Evaluate various manufacturing lines and their technoeconomic potential to scale ingredient production; 3) Develop ingredients to meet requirements necessary to respond to physical and environmental stressors in the supply chain.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.