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Despite the importance of breads through the history, the wide range of options might lead to a choice dilemma from health-conscious consumers when purchasing bread. In this study, commercial white, wholegrain and multigrain regular breads, sold in Europe, were collected, and classified into gluten-free and gluten-containing categories. For gluten-free-breads, no significant differences were found in energy, saturated fatty acids, sugar, fibre and salt between white and wholegrain breads regardless of the mention "multigrain." For gluten-containing, carbohydrates and fibres differed between white and wholegrain breads, while when considering multigrain presence all the nutritional composition varied significantly. Nevertheless, the mentions wholegrain and multigrain on gluten-free and gluten-containing breads do not guarantee a better nutritional quality compared to white bread. Gluten-free breads showed increased fibre, and decreased carbohydrates, sugar and energy which are comparable to gluten-containing wholegrain breads. This underlines the improvement of gluten-free breads and suggests further investigations to increase protein content.

The change in consumers’ lifestyle promoted “snackification” favouring the commercialisation of on-the-go products such as cereal bars (CBs). Manufacturers are encountering challenges to develop healthy, natural, tasty, and affordable CBs. This article focuses on production methods, the current and emerging market trends, and practical implications for developing new CBs. The future of the CBs industry is associated with finding the right balance between nutritional value, sensory attributes, naturalness, and sustainability. Manufactures have a toolbox with a large portfolio of ingredients and processing techniques to develop CBs that can be a meal substitute, a supplement, or a snack.

Background: Pea (Pisum sativum) proteins are emerging as a popular alternative to those conventional (deriving from animal and soy) due to their high protein content with interesting functionality, sustainability, availability, affordability and hypo-allergenicity. This popularity has been parallel to an intensive research from protein isolation to their applications. Pea protein ingredients can be obtained through wet extraction, dry fractionation or more recently mild fractionation. As such, commercial pea proteins ingredients include flour (20–25% protein), concentrate (50–75% protein), and isolate (>80% protein). Beside protein content, these ingredients differ in their chemical composition, thereby affecting their functionality. Scope and approach: In this perspective, this review offers the latest update on essential knowledge for developing innovative food and beverages using pea proteins through emphasizing the production and the characteristics of pea proteins, addressing the efficiency of pea proteins as functional ingredients in foodstuffs making, and discussing the challenges encountered for pea protein popularization. Key findings and conclusions: Current research indicates the importance of developing extraction and drying technologies to reach target techno-functional and organoleptic attributes of pea proteins. A better modulation of processing steps can enable designing high-quality pea protein rich food and beverage.

Consumer interest in protein rich diets is increasing, with more attention being paid to the protein source. Despite the occurrence of animal proteins in the human diet, non-animal proteins are gaining popularity around the world due to their health benefits, environmental sustainability, and ethical merit. These sources of protein qualify for vegan, vegetarian, and flexitarian diets. Non-animal proteins are versatile, derived mainly from cereals, vegetables, pulses, algae (seaweed and microalgae), fungi, and bacteria. This review’s intent is to analyze the current and future direction of research and innovation in non-animal proteins, and to elucidate the extent (limitations and opportunities) of their applications in food and beverage industries. Prior knowledge provided relevant information on protein features (processing, structure, and techno-functionality) with particular focus on those derived from soy and wheat. In the current food landscape, beyond conventionally used plant sources, other plant proteins are gaining traction as alternative ingredients to formulate animal-free foodstuffs (e.g., meat alternatives, beverages, baked products, snack foods, and others). Microbial proteins derived from fungi and algae are also food ingredients of interest due to their high protein quantity and quality, however there is no commercial food application for bacterial protein yet. In the future, key points to consider are the importance of strain/variety selection, advances in extraction technologies, toxicity assessment, and how this source can be used to create food products for personalized nutrition.