Mozzarella goes low fat
New EU legislation calls for limiting fat content in cheeses. Europe’s cheese-making industry is therefore looking at ways to decrease fat while maintaining taste, texture and melting ability of cheeses. This was the aim of the EU-funded CHEESECOAT (Novel processing technology for manufacturing low-fat mozzarella-type cheese with superior performance in ready meals) project. The project developed a mozzarella-type cheese with less than 3 % fat that tastes much better than low-fat varieties available on the market. To achieve its aims, the project team isolated novel starter cultures to enhance the texture and taste of low-fat mozzarella-like cheeses, improving processing stages related to acidity, milk-fat ratio, casein-to-fat ratio, melting factor and temperature. It also created an oil coating process of cheese shreds to improve the properties of the cheese without all the fat. The initiative, which brings together 11 partners from several European countries, businesses and research centres, began by investigating the latest advances in low-fat cheese-making. It found that low-fat mozzarella improves with higher moisture content, less calcium and improved proteolysis, brought about by better starter cultures and processing. After screening 100 microbial cultures and culture combinations for proteolytic ability and other characteristics, the project team chose eight cultures that displayed better performance. These cultures were further developed with optimised growth media and scaled up before being tested in cheese-making. In parallel, CHEESECOAT made significant progress in developing a promising fat-based emulsion coating, based on dairy-derived ingredients, to enhance melting behaviour of cheese. In addition, spray-coating equipment for in-line application of the coating on shredded cheese has been manufactured. Testing was conducted in a pizza factory using the new technology dubbed CheeseCoat, giving way to tasty pizza that boasts 50 % less fat than its conventional counterpart. The results have been very good, paving the way for commercialisation of the mozzarella-type cheeses and related technologies. Armed with these developments and advances, the small and medium-sized businesses under the project are expected to increase their market competitiveness. Dieters, pizza fans, sandwich makers, health-conscious individuals and cheese lovers will undoubtedly welcome the new product.
Keywords
Low-fat, mozzarella, cheese, CHEESECOAT, dairy
