Today I bumped into the international product manager from Curves Women’s fitness on the escalator up to the show and she said she was searching for the perfect protein rich fitness bar for the club’s female clients. They are apparently looking for lots of juicy, fruit and nuts with a slow release low Gi profile – as a meal replacement bar. There are around six energy bar samplings available here on the tasting bar and in fact the winner of the consumer vote for the whole of the Finished Products Arena is the Tri Bar from NutriBio. You can hear Sophie Houdart who is responsible for its R&D speak on FoodBev.com shortly. There is also a delicious chunky chocolate and peanut high protein bar from Hertza Shokolade in Germany, coming in a close second.
There are lots of vitamin flavoured gummies on the stands here following on from Anlit’s success with their calming gummy vitamin bears last year. Here Odra from Poland is showcasing gummy fruits with Omega-3 EHA, notoriously difficult to mask iron and a range of vitamins and minerals.
The most innovative company in this sector though has to be Carmit, known for its experience with chocolate, and now producing chocolate coins with vitamins D and K and for adults – chocolate coins with Astaxanthin for eye health – sourced from Algatechnologies. He also had guarana rich energy lollipops and low fat, high protein wafer bars – the winners of last year’s consumer vote.
I met with Professor Dimitris Bararykis of Latvia – a technology engineer who has a number of ideas just waiting to be developed, including healthy snacks involving 35% milk protein, baby snacks and a muesli designed to aid colon health.
But the best idea of the last three days? That has to be the edible chocolate milk pot – yes a pot made out of chocolate, to hold the milk for our morning tea, or coffee, served in a local Swiss bakery. Made by Pistor and known as ‘Coques a crème’ this is the second example I have seen of edible packaging and one that I believe will spread across Europe.
We’ve come across lots of people too who are keen to enter our World Beverage Innovation Awards – both in the ingredients and finished products categories, so we look forward to seeing you all again at BrauBeviale in Nuremberg in November.
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