BY ALEX CLERE AT DRINKTEC, GERMANY
It’s the end of day one here at Drinktec in Munich. The world’s largest beverage show, taking place every four years, is resplendent with the usual array of brewing solutions, bottling systems and innovative technology for both brewing and winemaking.
But it isn’t all alcohol: my pick for today is sophisticated juices, and the number of companies exhibiting either new combinations, ingredients to achieve an authentic flavours, or colours to achieve visual appeal – naturally.
Austria Juice was displaying two new juice-based drinks to appeal to grown-up consumers as an alternative to lemonade. One features sage with yuzu – a citrus fruit on the rise – and the other combination was tomato and rhubarb.
It may sound like a slightly unusual pairing, but the natural sweetness of the tomato makes for a refreshing and subtle flavour without too much sweetness.
Elsewhere, Bulgarian beverage ingredients company Panteley Toshev gave visitors a taste of two juices with on-trend ingredients – cranberry, blackcurrant and red grape; as well as passionfruit with mint and peach. ADM Wild were demonstrating what they could do with natural colours and flavours, with a couple of sample still drinks on their stand.
And lots of manufacturers showed that they were experimenting with green tea-based still drinks – take, for example, the apple-mint green tea drink and raspberry black tea drink from Iprona, and also some green tea energy drinks from Martin Bauer Group.
We hope to be able to bring you fresh insights from Drinktec throughout this week. You’re welcome to visit us at B1.328, or join us on Thursday afternoon in the Drinktec Forum in Hall A2 for the World Beverage Innovation Awards.
And if it does happen to be brewing and bottling that you’re most interested in, we’ll have plenty of that throughout this week too.
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