Separation of gluten and starch

The facts don’t lie: the typically Dutch bread consumption is declining and more importantly, changing. The traditional sandwich for breakfast and lunch is replaced by for instance ready-made breakfast foods and eating out of home lunches. Nothing wrong with that; it’s a development that fits the changing society. Furthermore it backs some of the established parties into a corner. Suddenly their always coveted products are not as interesting anymore. Or are even being labeled as “bad”.

Also there are an increasing number of health questions around bread. Bread is seen as fattening and contains the controversial (in my opinion particularly misunderstood) gluten. Of course for people with coeliac disease it is an ingredient to stay well away from. However, most of us don’t suffer from coeliac disease. For this much larger group the gluten in bread can offer a solution in the demand for alternative, plant proteins.

When surfing the internet for gluten, the search results mainly point at and refer to products without these valuable proteins. Do we even realize that we are dealing with a widely available plant protein? The sustainability of animal protein consumption gets, and I believe rightfully, more and more attention from different angles. We’re all looking for alternatives, right?

Summarizing from my point of view: wheat contains a so called underutilized, functional, nutritious protein, which can ensure the increasing need for plant proteins. Furthermore this can scale up the value of wheat for those at the beginning of the chain.

At TOP bv we are in the process of reviving wheat, and especially gluten. In cooperation with Sobatech we have developed a prototype gluten-starch separator. With this machine we are able to – in a simple, sustainable and efficient way – separate gluten from wheat in a continuous process. Looking at the current changes and predictions for the future, this type of divorce constitutes an obvious “win-win” situation.

Stella Moria