EU-FRESHBAKE - Freshly Baked Breads with Improvement of Nutritional Quality and Low Energy Demanding for the Benefit of the Consumer and of the Environment

This project concerns the BAKE OFF TECHNOLGY (BOT), which consists in producing bakery goods from industrial refrigerated or frozen bakery goods and to retail them in downtown baking shops OR to make them available in supermarket for domestic baking. Bread consumption, which is at the base of the human diet is growing very slowly (~ 1%/year), whereas BOT is growing by about 10%/year. Indeed, the consumer wants freshly baked bread at any time of the day.
<P>
So far, BOT has mainly concentrated its efforts on mass production of plain breads made with white flour and low nutritional value. Partially baked bread is leading the market (>50%), whereas this product, which is baked two times, is energy demanding and addresses quality problems (rapid staling, crust flaking). Gluten free breads are almost absent of the BOT because removing gluten from the formulation of bread is a real challenge. Beside, Celiac disease (gut disorder related to gluten allergy) affects about 0.1% people in Europe.
<P>
This project addresses important strategic objectives:
<UL> <LI> To develop bread formulations (incl. gluten free breads) with enhanced nutritional value, following the European Regulation on Nutrition and Health, adapted to the BOT
<LI>To reduce energy consumption of BOT
<LI>To develop innovative ingredients with low chemicals that will support these new pathways
<LI>To organize and perform workshops to present and demonstrate the results of the project, where both project participants and other bakeries (giving priority to SME bakeries) will be invited.
<LI>To develop tools that will permit to extend the findings of the project to future formulations and developments.
</ul>
These objectives will be achievable by evaluating the expectation of European consumer against breads with health benefit, by developing specific tools that will permit to quantify the improvements (i.e. energy consumption, health benefit index) and by interacting with existing projects dealing with cereal and celiac disease.