Taura Natural Ingredients has embarked on a major push to highlight the benefits of its URC fruit ingredients to food manufacturers across Asia.
The global company is exhibiting at Food Ingredients Asia –Thailand 2013 (on Stand N14), where it will showcase its full range of premium-quality fruit ingredients, made using its Ultra Rapid Concentration (URC) technology.
URC is a unique process of concentrating the taste, texture and natural goodness of fruit into pieces, flakes and pastes for use in applications such as chocolate, breakfast cereals, baked goods, confectionery and snack bars. It provides consistent product quality and retains the primary colour, flavour and aroma of the raw ingredients.
Taura offers URC fruit ingredients in three key formats, each offering advanced functionality, low water activity and bake & process stability, while requiring only ambient storage:
• URC Fruit Pieces – a value-added alternative to fresh, sugar-infused or dried fruit, developed for use in a wide range of bakery, confectionery and snack applications.
• URC Fruit Flakes – an innovative format providing manufacturers with the ability to add the taste, colour and natural goodness of fruit to cereals, snack and bakery products.
• URC Fruit Pastes – suitable for use in dry bakery applications, including biscuits, cookies, wafers, baked bars and cereal pillows.
Bartolo Zame, Head of Sales – Asia Pacific at Taura Natural Ingredients, said: “Our URC fruit ingredients offer manufacturers in Asia the opportunity to include real fruit in shelf stable products, enabling them to capitalise on the health halo real fruit has in the eyes of Asian consumers.”
He continued: “URC fruit ingredients are 100% natural, free from preservatives, artificial colours and flavours. They offer a tastier alternative to raisins, individually quick frozen fruit (IQF), fruit powders, cream based filling pastes, sugar infused and dried fruit – all of which lack the flavour, high bake stability, durability and aroma that URC products offer. Seasonality is not a problem, with exotic fruit variants available all year round.”
A new addition to Taura’s portfolio is the recently developed, New Zealand-made URC BakeFruit™ range, which comprises six varieties of fruit pieces made using Taura’s unique technology. The ingredients are easy to use in a wide range of bakery products, including cakes, biscuits, cookies, muffins, breads and brioches.
Six flavours are available, all of which are popular among Asian consumers – Gold Kiwifruit, Apricot, Orange, Blueberry, Strawberry and Honey. Developed to meet specific Asian market requirements, URC BakeFruit ingredients are Halal and Kosher certified and 100% vegetarian. The pieces are designed to provide bakery, food manufacturing and foodservice operators in Asia with a delicious, convenient and functional alternative to fresh, candied or dried fruit ingredients.
URC BakeFruit pieces offer several unique benefits, including high fruit content, bake stability and low water activity. Containing no artificial colours, preservatives or additives, they are free-flowing, create no mess during preparation and can be stored for up to 18 months, with no refrigeration required.
Designed to perform in a wide range of applications, URC BakeFruit pieces won’t burn or bleed during baking. In high moisture applications, such as bread and cakes, they absorb moisture to become spots of soft fruit, bursting with flavour. In low moisture applications, the low water activity of the fruit pieces ensures they retain their soft texture without spoiling the base product.
Bartolo Zame said: “URC BakeFruit ingredients retain all the flavour, texture and goodness of fresh fruit with less wastage and mess. They’re easy to use in a wide range of applications, have a long ambient shelf life, and also offer significant taste and texture benefits over all other types of fruit ingredients.”
He added: “In addition, when our customers purchase URC fruit ingredients, they’ll also be buying into the unrivalled technical and product development support we offer all our customers – a level of service that is unparalleled in the market today. We look forward to discussing the benefits of our URC range with Asian manufacturers at Food Ingredients Asia – Thailand.”
