A multidisciplinary approach to improve the quality of organic wheat-bread chain

Summary in the original language of the document

The main challenge for organic farmers, millers and bakers is to fulfill consumers’ expectations of providing healthy and safe products. The quality of organic grain can be modulated by agronomic modifications on genotypes, crop management, crop rotation and soil fertility, but the milling process and finally the baking process are also key factors in producing bread of high baking quality, nutritional value, taste and flavour. Nitrogen (N) is a key nutrient in achieving acceptable yield levels of sufficient bread-making quality, but previous results have shown that organic wheat tends to have lower protein content, dough mixing tolerance and loaf volume. The selection of genotypes with high N use efficiency, weed competitiveness and disease resistance allowed improving the agronomic performance. Besides protein content and protein composition, the baking performance of organic wheat bread also depended on flour starch damage, amylase activity, ash content and particle size distribution. The milling technique had a critical effect on both baking performance and nutritional value whereas the baking process may improve the bioavailability of minerals through acidification process (sourdough). Finally, this programme allowed to better characterize stakes and constraints of the whole organic wheat-flour-bread chain due to a multidisciplinary approach.