Reduced-additive breadmaking technology

A flurry of reports in the media exaggerating doubts about the safety of food additives led many retailers and food manufacturers to eliminate certain additives or reposition existing products as free from one or more food additives or classes of food additives. 

The breadmaking industry was not insulated from these developments, which provided an important impetus to work being carried out at the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association (FMBRA) in Chorley-wood, England into alternatives to the use of certain permitted food additives. In this chapter we deal with two such developments. 

Before the late 1950s, breadmaking was entirely based on the traditional principle of bulk dough fermentation, in which the ingredients were mixed slowly and the dough set aside to ferment for some time before being divided into pieces, which were moulded, proved and baked into loaves. 

Smith (ed.). Technology of Reduced-Additive Foods Chapman Hall 1993 

In the CBP it is necessary to create a dispersed bubble structure in the dough during mixing for subsequent inflation by yeast fermentation and thermal expansion. This bubble structure must be substantially retained through post-mixer processing. 

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In Chapter 4, Philip Voysey and John Hammond of the Flour Milling and Baking Research Association in Chorleywood, England cover reduced-additive breadmaking technology. The two major areas of development in this area are bread improvers and antimicrobial additives. 

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