Stratas Foods unveiled its newly developed Flex-Palm line of palm shortenings at the IFT 2013 Food Expo in Chicago.
The company presented its generation of palm shortenings that perform like traditional soybean-based shortenings at a news conference and demonstration at the expo. In comparison to regular palm shortenings, Flex Palm produced shortenings offer smooth and creamy pliable consistency that rival soybean-based products from the past, are easier to work with throughout the process of creating cakes and icings, a whiter appearance due to smaller average crystal particle distribution, a wider working functional range based on product temperature, more consistent texture from cube-to-cube and lot-to-lot and desirable textural properties maintained over a longer portion of the declared shelf-life. Flex Palm shortening is also trans-fat free.
The proprietary Flex Palm process was developed in the Stratas Foods Research and Innovation center, allowing for the zero trans-fat palm oil to function similar to hydrogenated shortenings—more like soybean. In order to meet the functional shortening needs of food processors, the company will offer non-emulsified and emulsified palm shortenings.
