New acrylamide-preventing yeast tests underway

November 23, 2011, Vancouver – Functional Technologies Corp. has begun evaluating food trials for a leading European producer of intermediary starch-based food products.

The trials include extruded snack food pellets, which are purchased and integrated by downstream food manufacturers into a variety of other food products. These downstream food manufacturers represent many brand leaders in the processed food industries.

The trials are looking to confirm the efficacy of Functional Technologies' proprietary acrylamide-preventing (AP) yeast technology in a variety of materials used in non-bread related food applications.

Efficacy tests will be conducted under simulated commercial conditions and specified product manufacturing protocols, in which yeast is both traditionally and non-traditionally employed. This provides Functional Technologies with opportunities to optimize the conditions and parameters under which its proprietary AP yeast platform is most effective.

"Functional Technologies continues to generate validating commercial interest in its yeast platforms, endorsing the appeal of its acrylamide-preventing technologies as a potentially valuable strategy to mitigate the risk of this food contaminant," said Howard Louie, CEO and chairman of Functional Technologies. "This collaboration also speaks to the opportunity for the company's proprietary yeasts to have critical impact in a wide range of food applications, which is enabled in part by the platform nature of our technologies in being able to address any number of yeast strains to suit the various needs of end-user food producers across multiple sectors."