Potato Starch

Brief Overview

Potato starch is a starch extracted from potatoes. The cells of the root tubers of the potato plant contain leucoplasts (starch grains). Starch is typically isolated from cull potatoes, surplus potatoes, and waste streams from potato processing. To extract the starch, the potatoes are crushed, and the starch grains are released from the destroyed cells. The starch is left to settle out of the solution or separated, then dried to powder. Potato starch is a refined starch containing minimal protein or fat. This gives the powder a clear white color. The cooked starch has typical characteristics of neutral taste, good clarity, high binding strength, long texture, and a minimal tendency to foam or yellowing of the solution.

Manufacturing Process

The manufacturing process of potato starch consists of cleaning off the impurities attached to the potato, washing for further wash the sand or mud attached to the potato, crushing the potato into potato starch slurry, separating the fiber and potato starch slurry, refining the starch milk to improve purity, dehydrating the potato milk into wet potato starch, and drying of the wet potato starch produced.

Food Industry 

The food processing industry currently uses potato starch as a general thickener, binder, texturizer, anti-caking or gelling agent. It also shows up in finished products such as snack foods, processed meats, baked goods, noodles, shredded cheese, sauces, gravies, and soups, as well as in yeast filtration.