Development of Plant-Based Cheese Product at Green Rebel

Abstract

The demand on the dairy industry has been increasing continuously. Specifically in cheese products, the growth reached 8.1% annually which creates a promising market share in Indonesia. However, there is a lot of attention in plant-based lifestyle due to its benefits for health, environment and animal welfare. PT. Hijau Adil Bahagia, commonly known as Burgreens, a community-based social business which connects local farmers, a passionate team, and conscious customers, eager to expand their products beyond just plant based meats in the Green Rebel Branch. Therefore, the project given aimed to develop a plant-based cheese that is marketable in Indonesia. By doing formulation, process optimization, sensory evaluation, packaging selection and product specification, the plant-based cheese can be ready to be marketed. From the experiment, it was found that PBC can be formed by the interaction of proteins, fats (vegetables fats), starch (starch B) and NaCl (salt). Moreover, the manufacturing process and hardening process can be optimized by cooking the tree nuts before mixing step, utilizing hot water and high speed when mixing the mixture, cooling down and covering the PBC before storing as well as storing it in chilled temperature (4℃). Furthermore, from the sensory evaluation, formula 2 (using starch B) was chosen with the addition of 20% seasoning to create an acceptable PBC for the panelists. The PBC is described as having balanced saltiness and umami taste when eaten with bread. Besides that, the use of vacuum packaging was found to be the most suitable type for the PBC as it can extend the shelf life and maintain its smell, texture and taste. The PBC utilization was also determined to be the same as dairy cheese such as becoming a table snack and toppings for baked products.