Abstract
Limitations of plant-based dairy alternatives as sustainable foods are their relatively low protein content and low sensory appeal. In this study, we used a consumer-led product development approach to improve the sensory appeal of existing prototypes of 3-blend dairy alternatives produced from melon seeds, peanuts and coconut. We used Relative Preference Mapping (RPM) and consumer acceptance testing using the 9-point hedonic scale to respectively identify innovative flavours and deduce the effect of ingredient components on consumer sensory appeal. Mixture design was used as the formulation tool to obtain optimized prototypes of the 3-blend dairy alternatives. Proximate analysis of the new prototypes, instrumental color assessment and consumer testing provided a basis to select a sustainable 3-blend dairy alternative. This prototype had a relatively high protein content (2.16%), was considered innovative by target consumers and also had a moderate liking score (6.55 ± 1.88) on the 9-point hedonic scale. Prototypes with higher protein content had low sensory appeal and were not considered innovative. Other prototypes with innovative sensory appeal had low protein content. By combining different plant raw materials and utilizing different sensory testing methods, we were able to design sustainable plant-based dairy alternatives which can be further optimized.
Highlights
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a sustainable diet as a diet that is nutritionally adequate, affordable, safe, and culturally acceptable while sparing natural and human resources [1]
Using livestock and their products to feed the world has a high environmental impact which includes the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) with the resultant negative impact on climate
We applied Relative Preference Mapping (RPM) to identify the innovations in flavour developed from a combination of melon seeds, peanuts, tiger nuts and coconut milk, used mixture regression analysis of the consumer acceptability scores generated from samples obtained from the mixture design, to understand how the ingredients or their interactions drive consumer appeal for the product prototypes
Summary
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines a sustainable diet as a diet that is nutritionally adequate, affordable, safe, and culturally acceptable while sparing natural and human resources [1]. Plant-based dairy alternatives are water extracts of dissolved and/or disintegrated plant material which look like dairy milk [15,16] They have become popular and are typically consumed by people who have dairy milk allergy, are lactose intolerant, who have a preference for the vegan diet or who want to consume lower calories as part of special diets [10,16]. This work follows up a previous study in order to develop, optimize and characterize 3-blend plant-based dairy alternatives formulated from locally available, inexpensive ingredients that are abundant, using a consumer-led product development approach [22]. We applied RPM to identify the innovations in flavour developed from a combination of melon seeds, peanuts, tiger nuts and coconut milk, used mixture regression analysis of the consumer acceptability scores generated from samples obtained from the mixture design, to understand how the ingredients or their interactions drive consumer appeal for the product prototypes
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