Baking&Snack - March 2012 - 67

GLUTEN FREE Amy Abouelenein

Q &A

Maija Aittola
Developing gluten-free products and living on such a restrictive diet both require overcoming challenges, but to address those challenges and make the lifestyle easier, General Mills, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, now shares its expertise with the gluten-free community through its website GlutenFreely.com. The site includes facts about celiac disease and the gluten-free diet in general, recipes, coupons and an online store.

As R&D director of General Mills’ Baking Division, Amy Abouelenein leads product development for the company’s Betty Crocker, Bisquick and Gold Medal brands, for which General Mills has developed gluten-free products. Ms. Abouelenein has worked at General Mills since 1989 and now leads the company’s R&D initiatives. Maija Aittola currently serves as marketing manager for new ventures at General Mills. She has worked on brands such as Cheerios, Pillsbury and Nature Valley and helped build General Mills’ international businesses in Southeast Asia. In this exclusive interview, Ms. Abouelenein and Ms. Aittola offer their advice on developing and marketing gluten-free products.

Innovating Gluten Freely
Gluten-free product development and marketing each come with its own challenges.
Lucy Sutton: What are the Top 3 challenges of creating glutenfree products?
Amy Abouelenein: The top three challenges for creating gluten-free products are: 1. Replacing the functionality gluten performs in baked goods. For example, gluten is a protein that provides the structure, shape and height, and chewiness in bread. Without it, bread loaves are often small, with a dry and crumbly texture. 2. Managing the supply chain. This requires strong collaboration with ingredient vendors to ensure incoming ingredients meet our gluten-free requirements. 3. Managing costs to keep products affordable for consumers. Ingredient costs for gluten-free products are higher than those of ingredients widely used in mainstream products. Often a combination of ingredients such as rice flour, potato starch, gums, etc., is required to replace the functionality of gluten. While we haven’t found the www.bakingandsnack.com magic bullet that replaces wheat flour 1:1, ingredient suppliers are continuing to innovate in this space. marketing, it’s a commitment that involves the entire company, and at General Mills, we’re proud to have made that commitment with hundreds of our products.

If a baking company that has never worked with gluten-free products wants to start, what should its first step be?
Maija Aittola: Manufacturing products that are gluten-free is complex and requires deep technical knowledge of food processing. To ensure that a food is gluten-free, a company must make certain the product does not contain ingredients that have gluten and must have measures in place to prevent cross contact of ingredients with gluten. Cross contact refers to potential mixing of grains during harvest, storage, transportation or manufacturing. The Food and Drug Administration’s proposed regulation defines “gluten free” as containing less than 20 parts per million (ppm) gluten. This is a very small amount. From operations to ingredient sourcing to

How can a baking company come up with a gluten-free product that still tastes good?
Ms. Abouelenein: At General Mills, we have more than 90 years of baked goods expertise, including a rich understanding of consumer preferences in this area. We use our sensory expertise to, in essence, fingerprint these consumer preferences. We can then use these fingerprints to help us target the consumer’s preferred flavor, texture and appearance of a baked good such as brownies or cookies. We strive to create gluten-free products that meet these targets and deliver the taste consumers have come to expect from our Betty Crocker and Bisquick brands. For instance, to achieve our innovative line of Betty Crocker gluten-free baking March 2012 / Baking & Snack / 67

http://www.GlutenFreely.com http://www.bakingandsnack.com

Baking&Snack - March 2012

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