Program 2: Discovery of desirable aroma and flavour compounds for oat food/beverage applications.

Oats offer unique nutritional benefits over other grains driving increased human consumption. Significant growth in domestic and international demand for Australia’s high-quality oats is forecast. Internationally, Asia represents the fastest growing oat market globally. To maintain Australia’s competitive advantage as a preferred supplier into Asia, capitalise on growth opportunities across this region, and to increase use of oats domestically, it is important that Australian oats consistently meet and differentiate themselves towards the quality and functionality requirements of oat processors and food and beverage manufacturers both domestically and in Asia.

The most sought-after food-related improvements in oat quality characteristics include: 1) higher beta-glucan, 2) lower groat oil content, and 3) improved flavour, texture, and aroma. Improvements in these traits not only benefit traditional oat products but are also important in innovative new value-adding food items that look to advance oats from simply a breakfast cereal into alternatives to staple foods such as oat rice, oat noodles, and oat semolina, as well as dairy alternative oat milk.

The GRDC is looking to invest in three R&D programs that will provide the foundational understanding to develop oat varieties that meet the flavour/aroma/texture, beta glucan, and oil content requirements of domestic and international food/beverage processors to support growth in the diversified oat ingredient market †.

Program 1: Accelerating the development of an accurate and cost effective high-throughput measurement method for key oat quality characteristics.

Program 2: Discovery of desirable flavour, aroma, and texture compounds for oat food/beverage applications.

Program 3: Modulating grain oil content of oats to improve suitability for milling and food/beverage ingredient development.

† It is anticipated that the three programs will engage through an annual meeting to share findings and discuss resources and other opportunities to accelerate progress in delivering benefits to industry.

The knowledge generated through these three programs will help Australian oat breeders to develop grain characteristics suitable for high-end food and beverage applications.

In this tender, GRDC is looking to procure:

Program 2: Discovery of desirable flavour, aroma, and texture compounds for oat food/beverage applications.

To support the development of oat varieties that differentiate themselves towards the quality and functionality requirements of oat processors and food and beverage manufacturers, oat researchers and breeders need an improved understanding of the compounds and biochemical processes that contribute to the flavour, aroma, and texture profiles of oats, how these are influenced by food processing methods, the level of genetic control, and environmental influences. Furthering this fundamental understanding is critical to determining the potential scope for genetic manipulation of ‘taste’ profiles to deliver oat varieties better suited to 1) improved traditional oat breakfast products, and 2) emerging oat food product opportunities (e.g. AEGIC’s oat noodle and semolina products), and 3) oat milk production.

Program 2 is a 4-year R&D investment looking to expand the fundamental understanding of key ‘taste’ parameters of oats in the areas, for example but not limited to, traits contributing to consumer enjoyment (colour, flavour, and mouth feel), improving nutritional components (?-glucan, protein, and micronutrient content), and physicochemical properties associated with rheology and stability (pasting, protein solubility, emulsifications, particle size distribution). It is envisaged that outputs of this program will provide oat breeders with potential selection targets and tools to develop varieties with market advantage in the production of oat milk and/or oat food items.

• Collaboration between research organisations and industry, such as Australian oat breeders, industry bodies, and oat food and beverage processors, is strongly encouraged to leverage knowledge, expertise, and capacity to successfully deliver on project outputs and outcome. Applicants should demonstrate how initial engagement(s) with industry has helped frame their proposal with clear relevance to industry needs. All collaborations should designate a lead organisation as per the Tender Terms and Conditions.

• Applicants can also outline possible opportunities for the knowledge and resources developed in Program 2 to be further leveraged by industry.

• Co-investment from research partners and collaborators is highly valued. Please see the budget template for definitions of cash and in-kind contribution.

• Analytical support is available as an in-kind GRDC contribution through the GRDC strategic partnership Analytics for the Australian Grains Industry (AAGI)*. Support could include advice on experimental and sampling designs, analyses of complex phenotypic traits, multi-omic analyses etc., essentially a range of innovative and fit-for-purpose analytics options. To access AAGI support, applicants must consult AAGI and describe the agreed scope of support in their tender. Please make enquiries to the University of Adelaide Biometry Hub (attention Dr. Julian Taylor) at [email hidden].

* Please note, applicants that decline AAGI support must describe a plan for analytics in their tender. Applicants must demonstrate they have the analytics capabilities required to deliver the Outputs. Please note that due to the offer of AAGI support, GRDC has excluded analytics work from its funding in this procurement and, therefore, the analytics component of these tenders must be funded as an applicant co-investment.

To help expedite connections between research organisations and industry, GRDC has collected details of companies operating in the oat food/beverage industry that are willing to be engaged by potential applicants for discussion around collaboration opportunities. Please email [email hidden] attention to Sarah Marchioro to receive a copy of this contacts list.