We provide lab-to-market services to brands who want to create innovative food and beverages to satisfy consumer demand for new, better-tasting products.

Microencapsulation is not a new technique today, and it solves many production and storage challenges. However, with our advanced microencapsulation technology, you can go much further. Our technology will help you create truly innovative products and realise your most bold ideas. Whether it is ensuring longer shelf-life, creating better-tasting products or intensifying flavours and taste, we can help you bring your products to the next level and offer innovative food and beverages that look appealing and taste great.

Our controlled-release microcapsules are a great tool to bring your creativity, experiment with the delivery system of flavours, tastes, colours and textures, and innovate by offering new sensory experiences.

We are pioneering programmed-shell microcapsules with a controlled release function, a new way to deliver substances. The release mechanism is your choice. It can be a change in pH or temperature, the application of friction or the increase in moisture.

Using your controlled release mechanism, you can revolutionise the way customers experience food and beverages.

We can precisely programme the release mechanism:

The growing demand for food that benefits health opens opportunities for the integration of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and other compounds in everyday products, such as flour, dairy products, bread, biscuits, energy bars, beverages, chocolate, etc. Despite the nutritional benefits of food enhancement, fortification presents a number of technological challenges. Fortification success depends on critical factors like exposure to air, moisture, heat, light and pH, among many others.

Low stability

Functional food and beverages offer consumers health-promoting convenient products and help avoid pill fatigue. They attract health-conscious consumers for one simple reason – they make nutrition simple. But if the idea is simple, its realisation is not. Incorporating functional ingredients into a drink and having it taste great, look appealing and stay stable is another story.

Many vitamins are inherently unstable, and their stability is affected by a number of factors that occur during a production process, such as oxygen, heat, humidity, ultraviolet light and interactions with other substances, resulting in limited bioavailability. Many nutrients often slowly degrade, lose their potency, and even become hazardous.

For example, vitamin B1 is very heat sensitive, resulting in nutritional losses after baking. Enriching food with fish oil is an effective means of increasing the consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids by the general population. But fish oil is prone to oxidation, limiting the fortified products’ shelf-life and susceptible to developing rancid odour and taste. Food fortification with vitamins A, D, and E solves the problem of their deficiency and contributes to the prevention of various diseases. But high temperatures, pH, light, and oxygen destroy these vitamins. The use of vitamin C is also limited by its high reactivity and low stability.

Minerals, on the other hand, are not sensitive to processing factors, but their use requires special care to anticipate potentially negative interactions. For example, fortifying food with iron helps prevent iron deficiency affecting one-third of the world’s population, but iron’s interaction with other ingredients lowers its bioavailability. Iron also accelerates oxidation in vitamins, fatty and amino acids, decreasing their nutritional value.

Unpleasant taste, odour or colour

Many vitamins and minerals come with unique challenges like flavour off-notes or changes in taste (often making it bitter or salty), or changes in colour. For example, vitamin B2 (riboflavin) changes the product’s colour, and potassium brings a metallic taste to the food. Iron is susceptible to oxidation, which may lead to discolouration and a metallic after-taste. Calcium salts can change the flavour, colour, and appearance of food. Turning fats and oils into stable powders for beverage mixes has become increasingly popular, especially with a keto diet. However, the factor limiting the usage of keto esters is their taste. Fortifying food with polyphenols, e.g., green tea extract, or with caffeine is also limited by its bitter taste, which is not everyone’s cup of tea.

Producers resort to masking agents to aid in covering up the flavour off-notes and changes in taste or colour, which results in additional costs.

Poor solubility

Some nutritional ingredients are known for low solubility. Solubility plays an essential role in fortification as it is one of the major barriers to bioavailability.

Solubility is important when fortifying liquids and acidic foods. For example, for milk, juices, and other beverages, solubility and dissolution characteristics are important factors as the nutrients in a powdered form can settle in the bottom of the container, and even vigorous shaking is not enough to suspend them. Common issues are clumping, separation and stratification. The challenge is to make the nutrients dissolve quickly and uniformly, with consistent colour and no sediment, so that beverages are not gritty and look and taste appealing.

In acidic beverages, e.g., orange juice, the acidity increases the solubility of some nutrients and, therefore, it may increase bioavailability. However, acidity can also cause problems with stability.

Various formulation tactics have been used to overcome the poor solubility, but their benefits are limited by the possible interactions. Manufacturers often decrease the pH to improve solubility or use stabilisers. This is a common practice when fortifying milk, milk-based beverages, and products such as yoghurt and cheese to maintain calcium in suspension and to improve mouthfeel and appearance. The use of insoluble calcium sources requires thickeners to keep them in suspension, that may result in a slimy mouthfeel and an added gritty taste to the product.

Our advanced microencapsulation technology overcomes these challenges and facilitates the incorporation of functional, health-promoting ingredients into food and beverages without altering their characteristics or appearance.

By applying a protective coating for individual nutrients, our technology prevents oxidation, thermal denaturation, moisture, and reactions with other ingredients. As a result, it stabilises reactive, sensitive or volatile compounds, enhances their bioavailability, minimises nutritional losses, increases their solubility and delivers products with longer shelf-life. At the end, it ensures fortified food and beverages comply with the stated vitamin and mineral content at the end of their shelf-life.

The rise of “Instagramable” food is sparking a desire to “eat with your eyes”, and colours are one of the key elements in attracting consumers’ attention. Because consumers are seeking greater functionality in the foods and beverages, that taste is a secondary consideration to performance. Successful products have both – great performance and great taste. Our technology prevents the alteration of product characteristics or appearance by successfully masking unappealing colour, unpleasant odour and taste, making redundant masking agents to cover up off-notes.

Using biocompatible and biodegradable materials for microcapsules’ shells, we can help producers satisfy the specific needs of vegetarians, vegans, and halal and kosher adherents. Our advanced microencapsulation technology also opens the opportunity for adding new ingredients for fortification, providing potential for developing new products.

Share with us your challenges and ideas. We will find a solution for you. Using our expertise in the field, we will help you transform your ideas into innovative, profitable end products with increased health benefits to appeal to the changing consumer demand and stay ahead of the latest trends.