This review summarizes how structural changes and processing techniques improve performance in plant-protein non-dairy creamers, suggesting future optimization methods.
Non-dairy creamers are spray-dried oil-in-water emulsion powders that must provide rapid wetting, whitening, emulsion stability, oxidative protection, reconstitution and acceptable flavor. Replacing sodium caseinate with plant proteins is attractive for plant-based and sustainability-oriented formulations, but remains difficult because many plant proteins show poor solubility, slow interfacial adsorption, weak or overly rigid films, heat- or salt-induced aggregation and off-flavors. This review critically summarizes peer-reviewed studies on plant-protein-stabilized emulsions, lipid microencapsulation and spray-dried creamer-related powders, and, unlike general plant-protein or encapsulation reviews, focuses on how protein source, structural modification, oil loading, wall composition and processing jointly determine product performance within an emulsion-to-powder framework. Physical, enzymatic and chemical modifications can improve interfacial functionality, but excessive processing may impair stability, color, digestibility or sensory quality. Future work should use multivariate optimization and validate plant-protein creamers in realistic coffee or tea systems.
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Wang et al. (2026) studied this question.
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