Stable and attractive organic bread based on increased usage of Norwegian grown wheat

Summary

The project shall lead to increased use of Norwegian wheat in organic bread, and establish a knowledge step-stone needed for contributing to the National goal of 15% organic food consumption. An increasing amount of organic grown wheat is produced in Norway, but it fails to reach the organic market. The bakeries producing organic bread use imported wheat due to unstable quality of the Norwegian wheat. In order to use more Norwegian organic wheat for food there is a need for more stable quality, improved utilisation of quality control, sorting and blending to level out variations, and improved knowledge on how the baking process can be adapted to the flour quality. By creating knowledge on how gluten proteins are built up during the growing season when grown in different organic fertilisers regimes, the project will enable improved recommendations on fertilising and thereby a more stable baking quality. Furthermore, the project will give insight into the quality variation of the wheat produced which enables recommendations on the choice of variety, sorting, and blending, and increased competence at the bakeries on how to handle variation in flour quality by adapting the process. Finally, the largest producers of organic bread use a challenging baking process based on germinated wheat. Despite a high success in sales the quality is unstable. The present project will contribute to a better control over the germination process and thereby a more stable end product quality.