Patent ID: 8420342

Claim:
An interesterification method for preparing a food, feed or an oil comprising the following steps: (a) providing an interesterification reaction mixture comprising a stearic acid source material selected from the group consisting of stearic acid, stearic acid monoesters of low molecular weight monohydric alcohols and mixtures thereof, (b) providing a food, feed or an oil containing a triacylglyceride; (c) providing a polypeptide having a palmitase activity, said polypeptide being selected from the group consisting of isolated, synthetic and recombinant polypeptides having a palmitase activity and said polypeptide either i. being encoded by a nucleic acid comprising a nucleic acid sequence having at least 85% sequence identity to full length SEQ ID NO:1, and wherein the nucleic acid encodes at least one polypeptide having palmitase activity and the polypeptide having at least one amino acid residue change recited below in Table A, or ii. having at least 85% sequence identity to full length SEQ ID NO:2, and having at least one amino acid residue change recited in Table A, TABLE A Amino Original New Acid Amino Amino Residue Acid Acid 27 G Q 45 G L 54 S H 61 D A E 62 V A G 72 R E K S T 74 F I 83 V M 96 A I 98 G L 116 E A F H L Q Q R, H140R R S S T V 117 L R, I161L 120 K L 133 S A 147 I F 151 I A G H 160 P T 172 R Q 212 S R 213 K T 214 T V N R Y 215 G A H 216 A V C L or iii. having at least 85% sequence identity to full length of SEQ ID NO:2 and comprising at least one amino acid residue modification D61A; D61E; R72E; R72K; E116A; E116Q; E116R; E116T; E116V; S133A; I151G; I151A; V163R; or D164R (d) interesterifying the stearic acid source material and the triacylglyceride of the food, feed, or oil, and (e) separating free fatty acid components from interesterified glyceride components of the interesterification mixture to provide an interesterified oil product and a fatty acid mixture comprising fatty acids, fatty acid monoesters, or mixtures thereof released from the food, feed or oil.