Technical problems associated with using real fruit in long shelf life dry products can easily be addressed with fruit ingredients from Taura Natural Ingredients, the company has said.
Manufacturers of products such as cookies, cakes, breakfast cereals and snack bars have traditionally had to contend with the difficulties caused by moisture transfer when using fruit ingredients, according to Taura, and introducing additional moisture to the product matrix in such applications poses a threat to the texture and shelf life of the finished product.
Fruit pieces, pastes and flakes from Taura Natural Ingredients are claimed to eradicate this problem because they are made using the proprietary Ultra Rapid Concentration (URC) process. URC technology concentrates fruit purées and blends to below 10% moisture in less than 60 seconds. This process, the company says, enables Taura to control the ‘water activity’ of the final ingredient.
Water activity is a measure of the ability of water to migrate from a given ingredient into the surrounding product matrix and is a relative measure of the capacity for moisture transfer. Taura Natural Ingredients claims that it has the ability to tailor the water activity of its fruit pieces and flakes to each application, opening up a world of product development opportunities.
Taura Natural Ingredients has created a free white paper for food manufacturers addressing the challenges associated with incorporating real fruit into long shelf life dry products. Entitled ‘Extending the shelf life of products containing fruit’, it can be downloaded from the company’s web site.
“Significant technical obstacles have previously limited the use of fruit-based ingredients in many products with a long shelf life,” said Peter Dehasque, chief executive of Taura Natural Ingredients. “Our fruit ingredients eliminate these barriers and mitigate moisture transfer in a range of long shelf life dry foods, enabling manufacturers to include fruit in products where it would otherwise be difficult without seriously compromising shelf life.”
URC is described as a unique process of concentrating the taste, texture and natural goodness of fruit into pieces, flakes and pastes for use in applications such as baked goods, biscuits, breakfast cereals, chocolate and snack bars.
