Patent-pending botanical blend cleans up lipid emulsion labels
EDTA is a synthetic additive used to prevent off-tastes and a deterioration in colour.
Naturex's ingredient, XtraBlend RN, was launched at IFT in Chicago last week.
“[Rosemary and spinach] are clean label and very simple to understand by consumers, so it really answers consumers’ expectations and customer needs,” said Catherine Bayard, category manager at Naturex.
Like EDTA, the ingredient comes in a powder form and can be added to recipes during the water phase. It is the result of a five-year research project led by Naturex that explored the chelating and free radical scavenging properties of more than 400 botanicals before settling on just two.
“We screened a lot of botanical extracts in vitro to find the best ones and then validated them in matrix with real markers of oxidation," said Bayard. "[We] also correlated this with the development of a rancid taste, which is important because taste can really be affected by oxidation in these kinds of products.”
“There is a special design on the formulation to ensure the product is easy to use, it’s soluble and homogenised in the finished product with no impact on the formulation.”
Naturex sources the rosemary from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and spinach from around Europe. The raw materials are extracted on site before being further processed into functional ingredients at the supplier’s plants in Europe.
Given the chemical-sounding name of synthetic EDTA, Bayard said she expects XtraBlend RN to make a splash in the world of food processing.
