Our Commercial Application Specialist Josie Hobson looks at egg replacement opportunities using ATURA Proteins

Whether it be due to health, ethical or environmental concerns, consumers are adopting plant-based diets or incorporating more plant-based foods into their current diets. Recent avian flu outbreaks, particularly in the US has led to a rise in egg prices and egg scarcity. Due to dietary & ethical requirements and increasing egg prices, consumers and manufacturers are considering plant-based alternatives in replacement of egg.

The egg replacement ingredient market is rapidly developing with FMI predicting a CAGR of 5.9% for the next 10 years, with a predicted value of $2.47 billion by 2034 globally. $1.19 billion of this predicted value is expected to come from the top 3 markets the US, UK and Germany. The UK is both the second largest and second fastest growing market in this group.

Functionality

Eggs are a key ingredient in bakery as they provide structure and stability through their foaming and emulsifying capabilities, coming from the egg white and egg yolk, respectively. The foaming capabilities aid in producing the rise of bakery products such as cakes, while the emulsification keeps the structure together, acting as a binder. The protein present in an egg also act to hold in the moisture of a bakery product. Functionality testing of ATURA protein concentrates revealed these proteins to have good emulsifying and foaming properties, indicating their suitability as egg replacers.

Application

According to Innova Market Insights, Bakery products are the most common category of food that are categorised as egg free. Bakery products make up 33.15% of all egg free products globally. Interestingly, 31.77% of egg free products made with similar ingredients to ATURA are bakery products.

Egg replacement with ATURA protein concentrates has been investigated in numerous bakery applications, with specific focus on cakes and cookies. 1 egg was replaced with 1 tbsp of ATURA protein concentrate and 2 tbsp water. For both, the pound cake and cookie recipe, a control was made using whole egg powder. The results highlighted that the ATURA protein concentrates act as suitable egg replacers; performing well in terms of rise, colour, crumb structure and taste of the finished product.

Find Out More about our protein concentrates ideal for egg replacement:

Fava Bean Protein Concentrate: https://aturaproteins.com/plant-proteins/fava-bean-protein/

Red Lentil Protein Concentrate: https://aturaproteins.com/plant-proteins/red-lentil-protein/