SBIR Phase I: Cost-effective manufacturing to enable adoption of a novel nutrient-dense chickpea dough platform in mass-market processed foods

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop an alternative for high-calorie, nutrient-poor, palatable foods. This proposal will create a nutritionally dense ingredient portfolio, based on a novel chickpea dough, with broad application in processed foods. The set of ingredients will consist of crunchy, high-protein, higher-fiber, and low-calorie ingredients with broad applicability in the processed food space; this could potentially impact population health, including prevalence of type II diabetes, obesity, and their co-morbidities. Such a change in ingredient sets will also result in a large commercial impact of this research. Economic benefits include the development of new products, brands, production and processing equipment to optimize the use of these novel, chickpea based, nutrient dense ingredients. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project focuses on the evaluation of a novel chickpea dough to create a nutritionally dense ingredient portfolio with broad application in processed foods. Generally, foods produced with nutritionally dense ingredients have strong flavors and poor acceptance, but alternatives require processing that is slow, inefficient, and costly. To solve this challenge, we are evaluating a novel microwave technology. The goals of the proposed innovation include: identification of formulations and processing parameters for several ingredient applications, demonstration of consumer sensory acceptance, and validation of scale-up viability through cost analysis. Technical goals include: Prediction modeling of heating patterns and identification of shapes, sizes, and ranges of processing parameters; drying trials to identify a versatile dough formulation for multiple applications; shelf stability tests; consumer acceptance tests to prove market viability; and nutritional analysis to fully characterize the final products. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.