Ice from starch?
The secret is 16:14 on September 15th
This summer, I casually bought ice cream after being drawn to its colorful packaging.
When I looked it up, I realized that milk was not used!
?
.
Although the ingredients are 100% plant-derived, it has the same smooth texture as regular ice cream.
When I asked what it was made from, I found out that the raw material is that "starch" found in potatoes.
And it turns out that the startup company that manufactures them is no ordinary ice cream maker either.
Let's get to the secret recipe.
(Los Angeles bureau reporter Nana Yamada)
No milk is used!
In late August, when I visited the University of California, Berkeley, where an event was held to welcome new students, I noticed a particularly long queue for an ice cream booth.
"It's a free sample, please try it! It's our most popular cookie and butter."
We asked the college students who were drawn to the ice cream by their energetic voices and asked them what they thought...
"This is delicious!" I can feel it," he said.
This ice cream is made by Eclipse Foods, a startup company in California, USA.
The types of ice cream include cookies and butter that were handed out at the university welcome event, mint chips, mango passion fruit, and so on.
It looks and tastes like normal ice cream, but it doesn't contain any milk.
Soy milk, almond milk, and oat milk are well-known plant-derived dairy products that do not use milk, but the true ingredient of this ice cream is starch.
How do you make ice cream with a smooth texture from powdery image starch?
I visited the company to find out the secret.
Aiming to be a food infrastructure company
We were greeted by the two founders, CEO Iron Steinhardt and chef Thomas Bowman.
Steinhart is an entrepreneur who spent many years working for an alternative food industry group.
After working at a Michelin-starred restaurant, Mr. Bowman has a unique career as a chef who was active in the development department of a food tech company.
The two met at an event, hit it off, and established the company three years ago.
This company is no ordinary ice cream maker.
Our goal is to become a food infrastructure company that develops plant-based dairy products based on starch around the world.
“It is our mission to create a more sustainable, healthier and ethical food system. We weren't able to find anything that had the same flavor and texture as real dairy products, and that could be replaced without being noticed. That's what we're aiming for."
The secret of the texture you care about is...
I was given a special tour of the development site of the product that is currently being developed.
Chef Bowman made black sesame ice cream and matcha ice cream that day.
It is a flavor familiar to us in Japan.
Four types of starch powder with slightly different colors were used.
It is made by blending potato, corn, cassava, and rapeseed starches, which are finely granulated like powdered sugar, and mixed with sugar and water.
The temperature, time and speed of mixing are trade secrets.
He told me that the water is also specially processed in advance.
At the stage of mixing halfway, add canola oil and sunflower oil that play the role of fat content.
Further mixing will result in a base of plain ice cream that has not yet been flavored.
This is mixed with black sesame, matcha green tea, fruits and chocolate to add flavor.
“We investigated in detail what milk is made of, and we succeeded in finding components in various types of plants, such as casein protein, that have the same function as those contained in milk. The starch in cassava,
for
example, reacts with vegetable fat to give it a creamy texture similar to butter.The secret to ice cream's creaminess lies in the microstructures called micelles that make up the casein protein. However, we succeeded in creating it by combining it with starch, and achieved an ice cream with a creamy texture that was not noticed as being derived from plants.”
I immediately tried the freshly made black sesame ice cream.
The development was so close to commercialization that it was so delicious that I could eat as much as I wanted.
Unless you're told it's made with starch, you won't notice it at all.
Low cost and mass production are the keys
As CEO Steinhart says, there have been “dairy products” using plant-derived milk, and the market for plant-based milk, such as almond milk and oat milk, that can replace milk is expanding little by little.
According to a trade association for plant-based alternative foods, sales in the United States in 2020 will reach $2.5 billion, up 27% from two years ago.
It now accounts for 35% of the total market for plant-based alternatives.
It is believed that this is due to the fact that more people are concerned about their health and that people with allergies to dairy products can also enjoy it.
If you go to the sales floor of the supermarket, there are many such plant-based ice creams on sale.
So, other than taste and texture, what makes Eclipse Foods ice cream made with starch different?
.
The keywords are "low cost and mass production".
I went to one supermarket and found that Eclipse Foods was $5.99, and another ice cream with oat milk next door was $6.99, a dollar higher.
Another dairy-free ice cream is $8.99, which is $3 more.
For example, oats, the raw material for oat milk, inevitably incur transportation costs from major production areas.
Starch, on the other hand, is found in a wide variety of plants and is cheap and readily available everywhere.
The advantage of this starch is that it can be mass-produced at low cost without the need to transport raw materials.
I might even come to Japan!
Knowing that black sesame ice cream and matcha ice cream are in development, I can't help but ask this question.
When I asked Steinhardt, CEO, "Are you planning to expand into Japan in the near future?", he replied, "We are also talking with Japanese companies that could become business partners in the future, and we are supporting American startups to enter Japan. We have also received funding from a venture capital company, so of course there is a possibility.”
Besides, Chef Bowman is a big fan of Japan.
PET bottles of hojicha and green tea were always stocked in the office, and pachinko machines were placed in the room as an interior decoration.
The day may not be far off when you can eat it in Japanese supermarkets and convenience stores.
Expanding plant-based “dairy products”
There are other startups in California that make these plant-based “dairy products.”
A company called Perfect Day manufactures and sells plant-based milk and cream cheese.
We are making alternative dairy products with fermentation technology that utilizes microorganisms.
I also tried a bagel sandwich that uses this cream cheese.
If you don't tell me, it's no different from regular cream cheese.
I thought that the day would come when we would eat plant-based dairy products without even realizing it, and no one would even care whether it was a dairy product or an alternative.
Solve the problem of food security?
Experts familiar with plant-derived alternative foods say that even plant-based proteins have the potential to reproduce nutritional values that are as close as possible to those of animal-based proteins. , points out that it has the potential to be a game changer that can also solve the problem of food security.
“Instead of making plant-based dairy products from a single ingredient like almonds and oats, the food tech approach is revolutionary. The development of alternative proteins is what makes sustainable agriculture possible, and that is what makes food possible. I strongly believe that it will lead to security.In the
future, investment in the development of the food tech industry and support from governments and others will be necessary for consumers to be able to purchase such products widely.”
after the interview
During this interview, I was particularly impressed by the words of CEO Steinhardt, who makes starch ice cream, saying, ``We produce products at local factories, like Coca-Cola syrup with a secret recipe.''
Making food products with common recipes that make use of locally available plant starches could greatly expand consumer choice.
Silicon Valley is home to cutting-edge food tech companies.
I can't take my eyes off the future development of how far the new "dairy products" born here will spread.
Los Angeles bureau reporter
Nana Yamada
Joined in 2009
Current position after working in the Nagasaki Bureau, the Economics Department, and the International Department