Purity Gum Ultra is a new starch-based emulsifier for creating cloudy beverages that, the company claimed, produced “exceptional turbidity [cloudiness or haziness] and stability in soft and alcoholic beverage formulations”.
The firm said its new emulsifier – which FIE judges singled out as beverage innovation of the year – could reduce recipe costs and lower manufacturing costs of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages by up to 50 per cent.
Premium look and feel
National Starch business director, Stuart Wilson, said: “In the past, manufacturers have struggled to find an emulsifier that combines cost-effectiveness with functionality.
“This new ingredient solves that problem, offering beverage manufacturers the opportunity to create premium-positioned beverages with a competitive price tag.”
Wilson told BeverageDaily.com that cloudy beverages suggested higher fruit content levels, which imparted a "premium look and feel to the drink" and worked by using oil droplets to create an optical effect that made beverages appear translucent.
Cost savings when using Purity Gum Ultra were mainly due to the fact that it could be used at 50 per cent of the concentration of traditional Ocetynal Succinic Anhydride (OSA) starches (E1450), and at 1/6 or 1/7 the concentration of traditional Gum Arabic (E414) he said.
The emulsifier also allowed the production of beverages with the same or even increased turbidity compared to gum arabic-based products at these lower usage levels, Wilson said, while it was also more stable than both OSA starches and gum arabic.
He added: "So it can deliver the illusion of higher juice content, enabling less juice to be used in the formulation, resulting in cost savings."
Doubling oil load
As an agent that formed an emulsion, the gum was able to stabilise up to 30 per cent oil, National Starch said, which allowed manufacturers to double the oil load in beverages when using the product, compared with traditional OSA starch and Gum Arabic.
The product's oil stabilising properties also allowed for optimisation of oil particle size distribution of less than one micron, which was a key factor in relation to a drink’s turbidity, Wilson said.
“It [Purity Gum Extra] is stable in both pasteurised and non-pasteurised applications and is suited to all stability conditions,” the company said.
Other products by National Starch Food Innovation/Corn Products International include emulsifiers, encapsulants and texturisers to suit fruit juice drinks, carbonates, smoothies and hot drink mixes.