President and founder of Grow Green Industries, which developed the products, Mareya Ibrahim, said both the ingredient and the wash respond to booming demand for natural, efficacious ingredients for food safety and shelf life extension.
“The industry is finally catching up to the desire of the consumer,” she said.
Director of corporate strategy at PL Thomas Devin Stagg said that the company had been looking for a natural, effective antimicrobial product for years – and one that would not ruin the taste of the finished application.
Ibrahim said that a great advantage of the eatFresh product was that it could be used in everything from chocolate sauce to chicken – as well as other sauces, dips, baked goods and beverages – without negatively affecting flavor.
“It is not only important for the clean label, but also taste; that off-taste that people sometimes complain about,” she said.
The ingredient is available in both powder and liquid form, and is used at a concentration of 0.1 to 2%, with log 3-4 efficacy on bacteria.
It is being marketed to food manufacturers looking to switch out ingredients like sodium benzoate, as well as those engaged in developing new products.
It may also hold particular appeal for food companies that would not have used any preservative products at all in the past, such as manufacturers of organic foods.
“We are doing that now with a guacamole company, which has gone from seven days’ to 14 days’ shelf life…There’s an economic question there too,” Ibrahim said.
The eatFresh antimicrobial ingredient has been launched alongside an antimicrobial wash, dubbed eatSafe. It is a patent-pending citrate blend, with a very mild flavor, allowing it to be used in many different product categories.
