Food Marketing & Technology - India May 2019 | Page 20

Cover Story
CYCLODEXTRINS – SOLUTIONS FOR
VARIOUS FOOD APPLICATIONS
They can mask taste or smell, stabilize emulsions and allow the food industry to avoid the use of eggs or animal fats in fine bakery wares and
savory spreads: Cyclodextrins offer a multitude of functionalities. Dr. Ulrike Fischer-Nägele, Head of Technical Service Nutrition at WACKER
BIOSOLUTIONS, discusses which solutions WACKER’s cyclodextrins contribute for the current challenges of the food industry.
Life Style and Eating Habits
Rising affluence, changing age
patterns
and
growing
health
awareness are three key reasons
underlying fundamental changes
in our eating habits in recent years.
“Better for the planet”, “better for my
health” and “better for me”: Today’s
consumers want healthy, sustainably
manufactured products with no ethical
concerns that are completely tailored
to their needs – and they want all
that without compromising quality or
taste. Recent market studies confirm
this development. Sugar-free desserts,
dairy alternatives such as soy, rice
and almond milk, gluten- and eggfree
baked goods, and foods that are low
in fat or vegan – i.e. free of animal
products – are clearly trending.
If it is to offer these kinds of products,
the food industry needs powerful
production methods and ingredients
– like cyclodextrins. Derived from
corn starch, these sugar molecules can
be used in food production in a wide
variety of ways: they protect valuable
ingredients during processing and
storage, improve the aroma and
flavour of food by masking unwanted
or overpowering flavours, stabilize
creamy emulsions and improve the
texture and consistency of spreads and
frostings. figure 1.
Longtime Expertise Egg-Free Fine Bakery
Wares and Spreads
In the early 1980s, WACKER –
the Munichbased chemical and
biotechnology group – started to
devote its efforts to cyclodextrin
research and marketing. Following
the market launch of cyclodextrins in
the early 1990s, WACKER began to
produce them on an industrial scale in
its US based plant in Eddyville, Iowa,
in 1999. Today, WACKER is a global
market leader and the only company
to produce and market all three native
cyclodextrins – alpha-, beta- and
gamma-cyclodextrin – worldwide
under the CAVAMAX® brand,
Oil-in-water
emulsions
are
the
value-adding component of many
manufacturing processes in the food
industry. Numerous foods, such as
salad dressings, mayonnaises and
dessert creams, contain both water and
oil phases. The only way to combine
these into a permanently stable mixture
is to add what are known as emulsifiers.
Animal-based emulsifiers can have
some critical disadvantages, however:
under certain circumstances, they are
sensitive to heat and acids, do not have
Figure 1: Functionalities in Food Applications
Food Applications with CAVAMAX®. Left to right: Mayonnaise, Fine Bakery Wares, Creams and Toppings. All Photos: WACKER
Food Marketing & Technology
20
May 2019