Acid Treated Starch
Acid treated starch, known in the trade as thin boiling starch or acid modified starch, is a starch whose molecular chains have been shortened by controlled hydrolysis with dilute mineral acid while the granule remains intact. The reaction is carried out below the gelatinisation temperature, so the acid attacks the amorphous regions of the granule and cleaves glycosidic bonds without dissolving the granule structure, and the product is still a granular powder that looks and handles like native starch.
What changes is the paste. Shorter chains mean much lower hot paste viscosity, so a thin boiling starch can be cooked at 30 or 40 percent solids where a native starch would be unmanageable above 6 or 8 percent. On cooling, however, the shortened amylose chains realign readily and the paste sets to a firm, rigid, opaque gel. That combination, low hot viscosity and high gel strength, is precisely what a starch jelly line needs, and confectionery is the largest single outlet for the material.
It is a white free flowing powder, insoluble in cold water, with the gelatinisation temperature slightly higher than that of the parent starch because the crystalline regions are left relatively enriched. Grades are characterised commercially by fluidity, a measure of how thin the cooked paste is, rather than by any chemical assay.
We source bulk Acid Treated Starch from top China manufacturers for our partners, working with several of them. The manufacturers are in Jiangsu and Shandong. A smaller requirement can ship in a combined container with other ingredients.
Please send the grade you need, the volume and your destination port, and we will come back with a solution and a price.
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- Function
- Texturisers
Specifications
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Appearance | White free flowing powder, free of foreign matter |
| Odour and taste | Bland, no off odour |
| Identification | Iodine stain and granule microscopy conform to starch reference |
| Total starch, dry basis | 97.0 percent minimum |
| Water fluidity | Grade dependent, 40 to 60 for confectionery grade |
| Moisture | 14.0 percent maximum |
| Ash, dry basis | 0.5 percent maximum |
| Protein, dry basis | 0.5 percent maximum |
| Cold water solubles | 2.0 percent maximum |
| pH, 10 percent slurry | 4.5 to 7.0 |
| Sulphur dioxide | 50 mg/kg maximum |
| Lead | 0.5 mg/kg maximum |
| Arsenic | 0.5 mg/kg maximum |
| Total plate count | 10000 cfu/g maximum |
| Yeast and mould | 500 cfu/g maximum |
| E. coli | Absent in 1 g |
| Salmonella | Absent in 25 g |
Common Markets Grades
Acid treated starches are graded by degree of conversion, expressed either as water fluidity or as an alkali fluidity number, with higher fluidity meaning a more extensively hydrolysed and thinner cooking starch. Typical trade points run from low conversion grades of around 20 water fluidity, still fairly viscous and used for coatings and sizing, through mid range grades near 40 to 60 for confectionery gels, to very high conversion grades approaching 80 used where solids must be pushed as high as possible.
The base starch is the other main variable. Regular maize is the standard for jelly confectionery because its amylose content drives the set; high amylose maize gives faster setting and firmer gels for gum sweets; waxy maize gives a thin cooking, non setting paste for adhesives and coatings; potato and tapioca bases give clearer, less firmly setting pastes. Grades are further split into food, pharmaceutical and technical quality on microbiology and residual sulphur dioxide rather than on conversion.
Applications
- Starch jelly confectionery and gum sweets, cooked at high solids and deposited into moulding starch where the paste sets to a firm chewy gel
- Confectionery pan coating and gum arabic replacement, where a thin, high solids cooking starch forms the coating film
- Jelly beans and licorice, providing the setting matrix at solids a native starch could not reach
- Instant pudding and dessert mixes, where a firm set on cooling is the desired texture
- Batters and adhesion coatings, where low hot viscosity allows a high starch loading without the batter becoming too thick to pump
- Textile warp sizing outside food, applied hot at high solids and setting to a strong film on the yarn
- Paper surface sizing and coating binders, where high solids application at low viscosity is the economic requirement
- Corrugating adhesives, where the thinned starch carries the bond at workable viscosity
- Gypsum board and building product binders, another large non food outlet for thin boiling starch
Brands Using Acid Treated Starch
Widely-distributed consumer products that list Acid Treated Starch on the ingredient label.
- CadburyDairy Milk Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy Beanies Block 190g ↗The jelly pieces in this chocolate block are set with Thickener (1401 (from Wheat)), 1401 being the INS number for acid treated starch.Label verified 2026-09-01
- CadburyDairy Milk Black Forest Block 180g ↗The cherry flavoured jellies list Thickener (1401 (From Wheat)), the INS number for acid treated starch.Label verified 2026-09-01
Brand names, product names and logos are the property of their owners. They appear here as published evidence that the ingredient is used, taken from the brand's own label or website. Their appearance is not an endorsement, and it does not mean the brand buys from us or from any manufacturer listed on this site.
China Manufacturers of Acid Treated Starch
Top Acid Treated Starch manufacturers in China.
NanTong GaoFeng Biotechnology Co., Ltd.10 ingredients in the directory
Suzhou Gaofeng Biotechnology Co., Ltd.11 ingredients in the directory- Weifang Century-light Biology Science Co., Ltd.1 ingredient in the directory
Company names and logos are the property of the manufacturers themselves. They are listed here because our own directory records them as producing this ingredient. A listing is not an endorsement by them, and we do not represent them or speak on their behalf.
Regulatory Status
In the United States 21 CFR 172.892 permits acid treated starch as a food starch modified, lists hydrochloric acid and sulphuric acid among the permitted treatment agents and sets the conditions for their use. The finished starch is labelled as modified food starch or food starch modified. The Food Chemicals Codex carries a specification for modified starches covering identity, residual reagent and contaminant limits.
In the European Union it is authorised as E 1401, acid treated starch, under the food additives framework and may be used quantum satis across most food categories, with purity criteria set out in the specifications regulation. Because it is a chemically modified starch it must be declared as a food additive rather than simply as starch. JECFA has evaluated the modified starches as a group and maintains a specification monograph for acid treated starch, and Codex lists it among the permitted additives in the General Standard for Food Additives.
Manufacturing Process
Native starch, most commonly regular maize but also waxy maize, potato or tapioca, is slurried in water at around 35 to 40 percent solids in a stirred, jacketed reactor. Dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acid is added and the slurry is heated to a temperature safely below the gelatinisation point of that starch, typically 40 to 55 degrees Celsius, so that the granule does not swell. The acid diffuses into the granule and hydrolyses glycosidic linkages preferentially in the amorphous growth rings, shortening the chains while leaving the crystalline lamellae and the granule shape largely intact.
The conversion is followed by drawing samples and measuring fluidity, and when the target fluidity is reached the batch is quenched by neutralising to about pH 5.5 with sodium carbonate or dilute sodium hydroxide. The neutralised slurry is washed on a rotary vacuum filter or a countercurrent hydrocyclone train to remove the salts formed on neutralisation and the soluble dextrins produced during hydrolysis, then dewatered to a cake and flash dried in hot air with a residence time short enough to avoid gelatinising the granule. The dried powder is cooled, milled if necessary, sieved, passed over a magnet and metal detector and packed. Fluidity is checked again on the finished powder before release, since it is the specification the customer buys against.
