Capable of encapsulating healthy ingredients such as vitamins and other fortifying nutrients, Lycospheres have a spongey texture and remain suspended in products such as jelly desserts, clear beverages or near waters.
Claire Phoenix (editor of Beverage Innovation) pointed out that the spheres effectively offer ‘visible nutrition’, and Alroy agreed that they provided an intriguing and visible way of capturing the attention of mothers and children alike.
The company is already working with potential manufacturers on the development of jellies for children, containing spheres of vitamins and a morning beverage for children. The spheres, which are naturally coloured and available in varying sizes, are made using patented technology and a matrix of alginate. They’re GMO-free, kosher, halal and natural.
LycoRed has also drawn on developments in technology for the introduction of its highly powerful lycopene, which can be used at levels of five parts perm (rather than 10 ppm as usually possible). The new technology removes some of the blue shades in concentrated lycopene to create a product with the pinky shades traditionally associated with carmine. The concentrated Lycopene is pH, light and heat stable.
Colour and flavour as well as the nutrition and functionality offered by active plant extracts was the focus for Symrise.
“We’re the only flavour house that can offer taste, colour and nutrition in-house,” said Sandra Stolpe, director corporate communications, Symrise. “We draw on natural extracts prepared at our plant in Hamburg.”
She explained that development work is carried out at the company’s own Competence Centre, where it creates attractive, healthy products with optimised colour, flavour and nutritional profiles.
One of the delicious product concepts on the stand was an indulgent cream cheese-based dairy dessert with a sparkling golden syrup topping and a bilberry fruit preparation.
“Our aim is to produce delicious products that consumers love and will buy again, and yet which contain healthy components such as bilberries,” said Marek Muenstermann, category development manager colours, Food & Nutrition, Symrise, which is currently conducting clinical trials into the health benefits of its bilberry extracts.
Further highlights I spotted during the day were the Absolute Water solution from Principium, and novel chewing gum concepts from Gumlink.
Extracted using a reverse osmosis technique from purified food-grade juices, Principium’s clear ‘water’ retains the flavour and the nutrient content of the original fruit and offers an alternative to pure water in a wide range of products. It’s organic, preservative-free and natural, and is available in sweet orange, red orange, Clementine, green mandarin, grapefruit, lemon, bergamot and kiwi varieties.
It’s one of the many innovative offerings from the new Swiss company, which has recently established a centre in Italy to market and develop offerings for the European market.
Antioxidant chewing gum and Zen & Free gum were two of the concepts on Gumlink’s stand containing vitamins C & E, selenium, and blueberry & cranberry extracts, and Ingredia’s Lactium ingredients respectively.
The gums are the result of patented technology that enables Gumlink to encapsulate flavours and active ingredients into the gum-based pellets of compressed gums. The two-colour layer hard tablets can contain a range of different active components that are released on contact with the saliva, which triggers the gum pellets within the tablet to create the gum texture and diffuse both the flavours and actives into the mouth.
“Traditional compressed gums can only be produced in one layer and cannot incorporate the flavours or active ingredients into the actual gum pellets,” said Thomas Jahn, junior marketing manager, Gumlink, who also explained that standard non-compressed gums were based on a dough within which the flavour and active components can prove difficult to incorporate.
As compressed gum is effectively powder-based, any active ingredients are released rapidly when the consumer sucks the compressed gum.
“As we can incorporate the flavour into the pellets that create the gum, the flavours also last longer during chewing.”
Claire Rowan is managing editor of Food & Beverage International magazine. Subscribe here.
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