Decoupled Flavor and Texture Matrices for Cheese Manufacturing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for manufacturing cheese-based food products struggle to achieve a wide range of flavors and textures without requiring a lengthy ripening process or additional steps like destructuring coagulum, which limits consistency options and increases production time and cost.
Innovation Solution
The method decouples the production of flavoring and texture matrices, allowing for their assembly and texturing under specific conditions to achieve desired properties, eliminating the need for final ripening and avoiding coagulum destructuring, thereby enabling a broad spectrum of flavors and textures in a shorter production time.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional ripening process is used to develop flavors, then flavor quality is improved, but production time increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-cultivating flavor-producing microorganisms in a separate step before incorporating them into the cheese matrix. This allows flavor development to occur in advance, eliminating the need for lengthy post-manufacturing ripening periods while maintaining high flavor quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the cheese manufacturing process into distinct phases: flavor matrix preparation with microorganisms, texture matrix preparation, and their subsequent combination. This segmentation allows flavor development to occur independently and concurrently with texture formation, significantly reducing total production time.
2Manufacturing precision
If coagulum destructuring is applied to ensure homogeneous mixture, then mixing uniformity is improved, but process complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the traditional approach by preparing the flavor matrix and texture matrix separately with各自 optimal properties, then combining them. This eliminates the need for destructive coagulum processing while achieving homogeneous mixing through controlled combination of pre-prepared matrices.
3Ease of manufacture
If fixed texture matrix is used, then production simplicity is improved, but texture versatility deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal texture matrix system that can be adapted to produce various cheese textures by adjusting composition and processing parameters. The same basic matrix framework serves multiple functions, enabling production of soft, semi-soft, and hard cheese textures without requiring entirely different manufacturing processes.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for the production of cheese-based food products with a wide range of flavors and textures, reducing manufacturing time and cost, while avoiding the use of melting salts and ensuring better regularity and flexibility in flavor production.
Implementation Method 1
it is frequent to use microorganisms for the biotransformation of a raw material in such a way as to manufacture particular organoleptic characteristics
Implementation Method 2
transforming the milk into a gel or coagulum, thanks to the adding of a coagulating enzyme (rennet) and via lactic acidification
Implementation Method 3
The interstitial liquid of the gel, i.e. the whey, is progressively expulsed via syneresis (also known as 'draining')
Implementation Method 4
transforming the milk into a gel or coagulum, thanks to the adding of a coagulating enzyme (rennet) and via lactic acidification
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a method for manufacturing a cheese-based food product, advantageously a cheese, cheese specialty, or cheese substitute, the method including: a) a step A) of providing at least one flavoring matrix, the consistency of which ranges from liquid to pasty, the flavoring matrix resulting from a step of cultivating at least one flavor producing microorganism in a culture medium, the step A) also providing a texture matrix, the consistency of which ranges from liquid to pasty, the texture matrix being suitable for providing the texture of the food product; then b) a step B) of mixing the at least one flavoring matrix with the at least one texture matrix; then c) a texturing step C), during which the mixture from mixing step B is subjected to physiochemical texturing conditions that are adjusted according to the final texture sought for the cheese-based food product.