Cargill is expanding its portfolio of label-friendly SimPure starches, adding tapioca starches to its existing lines of corn- and potato-sourced starches. The new tapioca starches enable brands to create tantalizing, process-tolerant textures, while appealing to consumer preferences for simple, familiar ingredients. Functional and versatile, the starches are ideal for a wide breadth of applications, including dairy and dairy alternatives, convenience sauces and ready meals, meat alternatives and pet food.

Cargill’s initial offering will feature four tapioca starches, two sold under its SimPure 996 series and two under its SimPure 999 series. The Non-GMO Project Verified texturizers share a few common traits, including a neutral flavor profile, but nuances in their functional attributes will give formulators new tools targeted for specific processing conditions and product applications.

Erin Radermacher, Cargill’s senior technical services specialist, said, “Today’s shoppers are more discerning than ever before, with a keen interest in how their food is made. That’s why we continue to expand our SimPure line, providing our customers with advanced texturizing solutions that use familiar ingredients to address a growing range of processing challenges, all backed by our global team of technical experts.

“As we evaluate new starches, we’re careful to balance process tolerance and functional performance with other critical factors like sensory and consumer acceptance. Our new high-performing tapioca starches do it beautifully. Consumers will love how they label, and formulators will love all that they can do,” she added.

Tapioca starches in the SimPure 996 series create soft gel textures, perfect for spoonable yogurts and firm-but-succulent meat alternatives. These high process tolerant starches bring key sensory and functional attributes together, offering a creamy mouthfeel, while delivering excellent water-binding properties and good cold-storage stability.

The SimPure 999 series encompasses the company’s non-gelling tapioca starches, which deliver creamy, indulgent textures thanks to their fat-mimetic properties. These starches are designed for stirrable yogurts, pumpable fruit preps and other applications that require a thick-but-fluid texture. They offer excellent cold-storage stability, controlling syneresis over shelf life and are a good choice for kettle-cooked soups, sauces and ready meals.