January 15/Alexandria, Va./U.S. Fed News -- A U.S. patent was issued to Kraft Foods Global Brands on January 11 for "Production of Snacks Having an Expanded, Crispy, Chip-Like Textured Coating."

According to the abstract released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A savory or sweet snack having an expanded, crispy, chip-like textured, substantially uniform, homogeneous, cellular coating is obtained by tumbling an edible core material, such as nuts or dried fruit, and alternately applying an aqueous component and a preblended dry mixture on the tumbling edible core material to form a dough coating on the edible core material. The dough-coated core material may be heated by frying or baking to substantially reduce the moisture content of the dough, and to substantially expand the dough. The thick, expanded coating has a substantial amount of wheat yet it possesses a crispy, crunchy texture of a chip, rather than a leavened, mealy or flaky texture. Use of a pregelatinized waxy starch, which is not chemically modified, provides crispness and a high degree of expansion Use of a pure, raw potato starch which is not chemically modified promotes crunchiness and a chip-like texture and reduces oil pick-up or absorption during frying. The tumbling is preferably performed in a continuous belt coating device to achieve high production rates and uniform coating of individual core material pieces without agglomeration or sticking of pieces to each other."

The patent was filed on Oct. 4, 2002, under Application No. 10/264,561.

For further information please visit: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=7867537&OS=7867537&RS=7867537

From the January 24, 2011, Prepared Foods E-dition