A collaboration in food science - xylanases and bread quality in the Journal of Food Science

Exploring bread quality through the use of commercial xylanases

A paper I collaborated on as a statistician was published this week in the Journal of Food Science. The study, led by Pedro Souza and Elisa Karkle at the Department of Grain Science and Industry of Kansas State University, evaluates the effects of eight commercial xylanases, of fungal and bacterial origin, on dough rheology, loaf volume and arabinoxylan structure in white pan bread.

Souza, P., Quadros, A., Dogan, H., Li, Y., Shi, Y.-C., & Karkle, E. (2026). Exploring bread quality through the use of commercial bacterial and fungal xylanases: effects on dough rheology, loaf volume, and arabinoxylan structure. Journal of Food Science, 91(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.70940

My contribution was on the statistical side: the design of the dose-response comparisons and the analysis of the dough and bread quality measurements. In short, the two best enzymes (one fungal, from Trichoderma reesei, and one bacterial, from Bacillus subtilis) increased loaf volume by up to 27% and reduced crumb firmness by up to 47% at optimal doses, and both were robust to over-dosing up to a point.

It was a nice change of scenery from finance and spatial statistics, and a reminder of how much of applied statistics happens in collaboration with people from other fields.

• Article: https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.70940
• Full list of publications: /publications/