Hydroxypropyl Starch (E1440)

About This Product

Hydroxypropyl starch is tapioca starch etherified with propylene oxide, which attaches hydroxypropyl groups to the chain. It carries the additive number E1440, INS 1440, with hydroxypropyl groups limited to 7 per cent. It is a stabilised starch with no cross-linking, which makes it the direct counterpart of starch acetate E1420, and the comparison between the two is the useful way to understand it.

Both work by hanging a bulky substituent on the chain to prevent amylose re-association. The hydroxypropyl group is larger than an acetyl group and is permitted at a higher level, so it is the more effective of the two at suppressing retrogradation, and it lowers the gelatinisation temperature further. The decisive difference, though, is the bond. Acetylation produces an ester, which is slowly hydrolysed at low pH and over long shelf life, gradually returning the starch towards unstabilised behaviour. Hydroxypropylation produces an ether, which is not. A hydroxypropyl starch keeps its stabilisation for the life of the product.

That durability is what buyers pay for. In a frozen dessert cycled through a domestic freezer for months, in a refrigerated dairy product with a long date, in a clear fruit filling that must not cloud, the hydroxypropyl grade holds where an acetylated one slowly drifts. The paste is also exceptionally clear and bland, and the low gelatinisation temperature suits cold-swelling and instant systems.

Without cross-links it shares the limitation of E1420: it will not survive retorting, sustained high shear or a hot acidic hold. Where the process is aggressive as well as the storage, the cross-linked version, hydroxypropyl distarch phosphate E1442, is the correct specification, and E1440 should be read as its gently-processed sibling rather than as a cheaper substitute.

Bio Green Foods supplies hydroxypropyl starch, E1440, in 25 kg bags and jumbo bags. Hydroxypropyl content, residual propylene chlorohydrin, viscosity profile, clarity and freeze-thaw performance are confirmed on the agreed specification and on the batch certificate of analysis. It is gluten free and non-GM.