Its Prolio product - a canola oil blend containing natural antioxidants - has been used for snack production applications in the Israeli market for three years and will now be taken to the international market after generating success in Israel, said Oded Izsak, marketing director of Shemen Industries.
The oil innovation uses multiple 'antioxidant locks' to increase the stability of healthier canola oil to the levels of stability seen with less healthy saturated fats, the firm said.
Speaking to BakeryandSnacks.com and FoodNavigator, Danny Ditzer research director of Shemen Industries said the idea behind the new product was to help manufacturers’ lower levels of saturated fats and increase levels of healthy omega-3 fatty acids without compromising on processing stability.
"All the regulations and demand in the markets of the world is for reduced amounts of saturated fat and to increase the amount of unsaturated fats - especially omega 3 and omega 6 from vegetable sources," said Ditzer.
"But there is a problem," he noted. "Saturated fats are the best suited for industrial needs, for example for frying, because they are more stable."
Ditzer noted that manufactures currently have to compromise on either the processing methods or the healthiness of their product by opting for stable but unhealthy and undesirable saturated fats or healthier but less stable unsaturated oils.
"We thought about how we could overcome this problem," said the R&D manager. "We wanted to increase the range of usage of this beneficial effect without getting the sensitivity or the problems that you get at high temperatures."
"Our goal was to give stability to canola oil for example, that has 7% omega-3 in the oil, and to give it a high stability like the saturated fats," he explained. "What we have achieved is a very stable product - Prolio - which is a blend of oils, mainly based on canola oil but with a special blend of natural antioxidants."
Antioxidant technology
Ditzer explained that generally an antioxidant protection is destroyed at higher temperatures, but by building up ‘layers’ of protection “block after block” the natural antioxidants are able to protect the oil and each other.
“One is protecting the other in a synergistic way, but also the decomposition that happens to the antioxidants itself acts as an antioxidant.”
He said that using this technology enables the oil to have a much higher stability than other oils from vegetable sources – and puts it on par with saturated fats and oils in tests of stability.
Ditxzer explained that using oil stability tests, Shemen had found that its oil remain stable four times longer than normal canola oil – remaining stable for around 28 hours versus 7 hours in a rancimat test.
Another benefit of the natural antioxidant blend, he added, is that the omega-3 fatty acids in the canola oil remain stable and at the same levels throughout the shelf life of the product.