DSM Food Specialties awarded for PreventASe acrylamide mitigation enzyme

DSM Food Specialties has won the 2010 Frost &Sullivan award for Product Differentiation Excellence with its unique solution for acrylamide mitigation – PreventASe. An enzyme preparation, PreventASe is recognized the best-in-class to mitigate the formation of acrylamide in bread, biscuits and extruded snacks by as much as 90%. DSM Food Specialties differentiated its product through the quality, the complexity and the customized range of PreventASe, matching the market needs. This award recognises the proven functionality of PreventASe and underlines DSM Food Specialties’ position as a leading innovator of enzymes to the food industry.

PreventASe is proven to be able to mitigate the formation of acrylamide in certain foods by as much as 90%. The PreventASe enzyme is a so-called “asparaginase enzyme preparation” from the Aspergillus niger micro-organism (A. niger). The enzyme basically converts one of the precursors of acrylamide, asparagine, into another naturally occurring amino acid, aspartate. As a result, asparagine is not available anymore for the chemical reaction that forms acrylamide when carbohydrate-containing foods, such as bread, biscuits, crackers, processed potato products and cereals, are being heated.