The new hydrocolloid system goes by the lengthy moniker of TIC Pretested Ticamulsion A-2010 and is designed to replace modified food starches in both weighted and unweighted beverage emulsions.
Ticamulsion A-2010 is manufactured from the most commonly available grades of gum arabic and can be used at just half the level of other emulsifiers, TIC Gums claims. Furthermore, the company said, laboratory tests had shown that it produced the most stable emulsions with the lowest median particle size.
The cold water soluble hydrocolloid is derived from a readily available non-GMO raw material, and last year was added to the list of Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) substances after being reviewed by the Flavor Extract Manufacturing Association (FEMA) Expert Panel in the US. This means that Ticamulsion A-2010 can now be used in beverage emulsions and other applications, labelled as 'modified gum acacia'.
The rollout of the new hydrocolloid comes after years of development, according to TIC Gums, including frequent visits to African gum arabic growing regions of Chad and Eritrea. Throughout the R&D phase, the company's team of food chemists worked on a series of verification studies to determine the optimum processing conditions that would yield a superior emulsifying system, and in 2002, TIC Gums was assigned a United States patent for the modified hydrocolloid and its manufacture.
"As the granting of a patent and FEMA GRAS approval demonstrates, Ticamulsion A-2010 is truly a breakthrough," TIC Gums' president Scott Riefler proudly stated. "By working so closely throughout the process, from finding just the right incision point on a tree in Africa to evaluating oil droplet sizes in the lab, building a new spray tower and working with our customers on various applications, we believe we've developed a superior multi-purpose system that is both an effective starch replacer and a high-performing stabiliser."
TIC Gums supplies hydrocolloids to the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries worldwide.