Dr. Holdstock publishes her latest work in Journal of Food Engineering

A comprehensive, interdisciplinary work by Dr. Megan Holdstock (former EPSRC SoFI2 CDT PhD student, match funded by Nestle) showing how alternative protein influences crystallisation behaviour of cocoa butter in presence of sugar is now published in Journal of Food Engineering. In this work titled "The influence of pea protein and sugar particles and their blends on the rheology and crystallisation behaviour of oils", Megan in collaboration with authors from Schools of Food Science and Nutrition and Physics and Astronomy, as well as Nestle PTC York show that milled pea protein particle accelerated cocoa butter crystallisation, whereas the presence of sugar delayed crystallisation, so that mixed particle systems had similar kinetics to pure cocoa butter. Over extended storage, concentrated particle suspensions curb the solid fat content, attributed to the restricted mobility of the of continuous phase due to the high dispersed volume fractions – as visualised by Raman microscopy. Overall these findings highlight the potential of insoluble, milled plant protein particles as unappreciated rheological modifiers in non-aqueous particle dispersions, introducing a novel application of plant proteins in confectionery systems. The full text can be followed here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2026.113167