Concepts in clean label: A wealth of applications development

Naturally coloured rusk

Another great concept is Rainbow Rusk, a twice-baked bread that incorporates vegetable and/or fruit powders derived from vegetable byproducts. These tasty and versatile rusks pair well with soups, cheese, or jam, as a snack or appetizer. “We use apple powder, carrot powder and spinach powder, which are byproducts from the juice manufacturing process. We make it into a rusk whereby people can enjoy it with jam, salad or croutons. That’s how we utilize our ingredients to go with the mega trend around sustainability,” Marly notes.

Wealth of opportunities for clean label new product development

As the solutions portfolio expands, the Brenntag FN applications team in North America will be able to try out a whole host of new solutions. A new feather in the portfolio cap is Chr. Hansen’s new vegetable variety – the Hansen Sweet Potato™ Ipomoea batatas. This uses traditional breeding methods to create a long-sought after vibrant, naturally derived red alternative to carmine. The potato serves as the basis for Chr. Hansen’s recently launched FruitMax® line extension of bright red solutions that solve some of the biggest challenges of previously available natural red colors. This color is suitable in beverages, bakery and fillings where heat stability is required. The ingredient can be simply labeled as “vegetable juice (color).”

“Hansen Sweet Potato™” is stable at a relatively higher pH compared to other anthocyanins,” notes Marly. “This is very important as getting a stable red color is always a challenge in bakery applications, where the pH is around 5-7. Most anthocyanin-based red colors turn blue or purple in that pH range. Chr. Hansen has overcome this issue by creating a red color that stays redder at a higher pH than other anthocyanins,” she explains. When working with synthetic colors you can use one color in many different applications, but when it comes to natural colors you have to be application specific. “That’s why it’s great that the color availability from Chr. Hansen is so vast. There are specific color types and sources, depending on the application, including blue,” she notes. For example, spirulina extract can serve as a great product for brilliant blues and green hues, in certain applications where regulation permits.

Strong ingredient innovation and thorough application work is opening up a whole new wealth of opportunities for clean label new product development and reformulation.