Texture and melting of vegan cheese From molecular scale to macroscale

It is quite challenging to mimic the texture and the functionalities (e.g., melting behaviour) of cheese with plant-based ingredients (vegan cheese). From a physicochemical point of view, most vegan cheese present nowadays on the market can be seen as an emulsion-filled starch gel. The food industry is interested in adding protein to such system to improve its nutritional quality, but it is unclear what the consequences of this addition would be. There are some studies on the textural properties of starch gels with varying ingredients. However, the underlying mechanisms for modulating their textural properties are not well understood. Also, very limited studies are available on the melting properties of vegan cheese. In this thesis, we aimed to gain more insights in the contributions of the different components and different processing conditions to the structural, textural and melting properties of multicomponent gels, at different length scales: molecular scale, meso scale and macro scale.