What Are the Food Safety Challenges of Plant-Based Food?

All plant-based food and beverage items must follow food safety guidelines before being sold. However, meeting commercial and regulatory standards in the food industry may be more straightforward with the help of a reliable third-party laboratory.

Fremont, CA: Dairy product allergies, which include milk allergies, are among the most common food allergies experienced by consumers globally. Globally, 70 percent of adults are expected to have demonstrated lactose intolerance. Therefore, Major dairy industry participants must create new goods to meet customer demand.

In recent years, there has been a rise in interest in plant-based dairy alternatives. Those allergic to dairy products or have lactose sensitivity have created part of this demand. However, plant-based milk has become a popular alternative to traditional dairy products as consumers read food labels and think about their dietary choices' ethical and environmental consequences.

To adjust to changing consumer demand, traditional dairy processors have started offering various milk substitutes in addition to their regular product lines. They need to have flexible tools at their disposal to test new plant-based milk and evaluate and test established product lines simultaneously.

Food Safety Issues with Plant-Based Products

Food safety issues with plant-based diets and dairy substitutes are varied. For instance, raw milk is one of the primary ingredients in the dairy industry that is often stable in terms of its nutritional makeup, physical characteristics, and microbiological contamination.

There are still certain novel plant-based elements that food firms need to master, which adds to the challenges associated with plant-based foods. Plant-based proteins frequently have higher spoiling risks than animal proteins because they are made from a broader range of primary materials. Therefore, close monitoring of the risks to food safety is required to produce novel food products. As customers continue to demand cleaner food free of pesticides, heavy metals, and other contaminants, manufacturers must take steps to ensure that they can supply plant-based foods to the market.

The main issues with food safety that producers of plant-based substitutes should be aware of are as follows, along with the appropriate countermeasures:

Microbial Growth:

Products made without milk have a nearly neutral pH, high protein content, and a moisture content, which makes them vulnerable to microbial growth. Extrusion treatment is one of the most critical quality control measures that supports product safety and shelf life.

Cross-Contamination from Animal Ingredients to Plant-Based Foods:

Producers who follow a vegan diet must look into this matter across their supply chain. This risk is substantial in the manufacturing of vegan food, especially in establishments that deal with allergens produced by animals, like milk, gluten, and eggs. Unreported animal allergies in items branded as vegan can have serious health effects, expensive recalls, and irreversible damage to a product's reputation.

Off Flavors in Formulations:

Off flavors (such as grassy and beany flavors from soybeans or bitter and astringent flavors from saponins and flavones) can emerge during the processing of plant materials. It is necessary for the formulation to mask or reduce the severity of these disagreeable flavors.

All plant-based food and beverage items must follow food safety guidelines before being sold. However, meeting commercial and regulatory standards in the food industry may be more straightforward with the help of a reliable third-party laboratory.

While dairy-free products are becoming increasingly popular, many plant-based milks contain substances like soy, almonds, and peanuts that might trigger allergies. Thus, it is still advantageous to have low-lactose alternatives on the market to provide customers with various options.

Dairy and growing plant-based milk producers need access to instruments that can swiftly and efficiently perform accurate compositional analyses. To produce dairy-free or low-lactose milk alternatives, dairy processors must have flexible equipment that can be utilized to test every product output.