Roland, Ida SchwartzLe, Thao TChen, TonyAguilera-Toro, MiguelNielsen, Søren Drud-HeydaryLarsen, Lotte BachPoulsen, Nina Aagaard2024-01-312024-01-312024-01-23Foods, ISSN: 2304-8158 (Online), MDPI AG, 13(3), 367-367. doi: 10.3390/foods130303672304-8158http://hdl.handle.net/10292/17167The market for plant-based drinks (PBDs) is experiencing a surge in consumer demand, especially in Western societies. PBDs are a highly processed food product, and little is known about this relatively new food product category when compared to bovine milk. In the present study, the storage stability, proteolysis and generation of free amino acids were investigated in commercially available PBDs over the course of a one-year storage period. Generally, pH, color and protein solubility were found to be stable in the PBDs during storage, except for the pea-based product, which showed less protein solubility after storage. The pea-based drinks also had higher initial levels of free N-terminals prior to storage compared with levels for the other plant-based drinks, as well as significantly increasing levels of total free, and especially bitter free, amino acids. The development of free amino acids in the oat-based drink indicated that the released amino acids could be involved in various reactions such as the Maillard reaction during the storage period.© 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/0908 Food Sciences3006 Food sciences3106 Industrial biotechnologyJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.3390/foods13030367