Tate & Lyle Automates Ingredient Development and More Supplier News

TECHNOLOGY

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Tate & Lyle Accelerates Prototype Development

In the six months since its debut this past fall, Tate & Lyle’s groundbreaking new system for ingredient design is revolutionizing the company’s approach to prototype generation and characterization. The cutting-edge system, which is called ALFIE, short for Automated Laboratory for Ingredient Experimentation, was unveiled at Tate & Lyle’s Customer Collaboration and Innovation Center in Singapore and can be programmed to run from and analyze data at its R&D operation in Hoffman Estates, Ill.

James Smoot, who heads Tate & Lyle’s global R&D texture group, offered a group of food industry journalists a close-up look at ALFIE earlier this year. The new system was seven years in development, and reflects a multimillion-dollar investment, according to Smoot.

“The automation utilized in ALFIE makes it the only system of its kind in the world where we can both prepare and characterize starch prototypes in an automated manner,” Smoot said.

With ALFIE, Tate & Lyle’s lab in Singapore and its U.S. texture lab are seamlessly connected and can operate around the clock, Smoot continued. Scientists in Hoffman Estates can make an ingredient, test it, and send the relevant data to the Singapore robotics lab for further analysis.

“Now,” Smoot said, “our scientist here goes home, goes to bed, and the scientist in Singapore shows up … and he loads the stuff that he needs into the robot and says, ‘go.’ This thing will take off and run all day long. It will make all of those reactions that we’ve programmed into it without human intervention.”

One of the two semi-independent robots that make up the system is already delivering throughput that is 10 times faster than traditional processes, and Smoot expects the other to ramp up to that level by later this year. “We are now leveraging the speed of ALFIE to accelerate the early-stage activities of new product development,” he said.

“So, what that means is that when our customer says, ‘I want this. Can you help me quickly?’ we can respond quicker than we ever have before because of this modeling work,” Smoot continued. … “Because of that characterization robot and the way that we can test all those interactions, we can begin to model interactions that people just can’t do.”

ALFIE was created not to replace human labor, but instead to accelerate time-consuming processes. “It was not designed around replacing manpower; it was designed around augmenting manpower,” Smoot said. “Now, instead of having a scientist stand over a reactor here, we’ve got a robot. Now, instead of having our scientists spending all of their time doing science, they’re thinking about science.”

Tate & Lyle opted to make Singapore the hub for ALFIE to capitalize on opportunities to serve consumers in Asia. Sixty percent of the world population lives within a five-hour flight of Singapore, the company points out.

INNOVATION

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New Blommer Facility Opens

Blommer Chocolate Company, a cocoa processor and ingredient chocolate supplier in North America, has opened a new, 10,000-square-foot R&D center in Chicago. The new center will focus on concept testing, processing and ingredient research, and application creation.

The R&D Center is intended to be a hub of innovation for future chocolate technology and will allow customers to participate in Blommer scientists’ development of new ideas. It includes space, equipment, and staffing for the full scope of development and processing, from innovative concepts to application. It also provides collaborative space for on-site customer and partner engagement with opportunities for product sample development, innovation and new business development, and analytical instrument capability.

RESEARCH

Avure Studies Nutritional Effects of HPP

According to new research, high pressure processing (HPP) may be the key to avoiding product recalls in fruit, vegetable, and herb products. Recent findings from JBT Marel’s Avure Technologies show that HPP extends shelf life, preserves fresh-like nutritional and sensory qualities, enhances food safety, and maintains nutritional integrity.

By processing foods at extremely high water pressure, HPP inactivates harmful pathogens like Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria monocytogenes. This gives consumers safer packaged fruit and vegetable products with fresh, just-prepared characteristics without additives or preservatives. HPP is applied in the product’s final packaging, eliminating the risk of contamination and protecting producers and consumers from recalls.

Researchers compared the flavor of HPP-processed apple and orange juices after three months in storage with fresh juice after one week and found no significant flavor differences, yielding a 99% confidence level. As a result, HPP products’ nutritional and sensory qualities are similar to fresh foods but are safer with a longer shelf life.

INGREDIENTS

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Upcycled Wine Raisins Debut

Continuing its quest to source overlooked ingredients and turn them into high-value solutions for food makers, Upcycled Foods introduces the first line of upcycled whole raisins for the commercial market.

Through a partnership with The Wine RayZyn Company, Upcycled Foods is taking upcycled whole raisins from the wine grape varietals of California vineyards. Rather than wasting the unharvested wine grapes left behind in one of the world’s leading winemaking regions, Upcycled Foods is introducing Wine Raisins, providing food makers with a unique, functional ingredient that enhances flavor, improves texture, and naturally fortifies nutrition across multiple product applications.

Wine Raisins are available in three distinct flavors, each with a variety of potential applications: CabernayZyn, with flavors of black currant, fig, and toasted seeds; MerlayZyn, with raspberry and plum notes; and ChardonayZyn, with flavors of caramel, apricot, and green apple.

NEW PRODUCTS

For consumers constantly seeking a good night’s sleep, Nuritas recently unveiled PeptiSleep, a natural plant peptide ingredient derived from rice bran protein that improves all stages of sleep, from falling asleep easily to staying asleep longer. This new powder ingredient is designed for next-generation sleep supplements, foods, and beverages to support better sleep.

PeptiSleep works by reducing cortisol, which is responsible for stress and poor sleep. In a pilot study, 61% percent of participants fell asleep faster, and there was an increase of 17% deep sleep, 13% light sleep, and 35 minutes of total sleep when taking PeptiSleep.

For food and beverage manufacturers looking for the perfect reddish-brown color, Sethness Roquette has introduced 1360PW, its darkest Class I Powder Caramel Color. The new color carries a very weak negative charge that can be used to replace a Class III or IV powder with a Class I, where the hue of other Class I products may be too high in orange or yellow. Sethness Roquette’s 1360PW is ideal for spice blends, cinnamon, and cocoa extenders, baked goods like cinnamon swirls, and dry pet foods and treats.

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MicroDried Fruits & Vegetables introduces MicroDried Strawberries, premium dried strawberries for developing innovative food and beverage products such as cereals, granolas, snack mixes, smoothies, baked goods, desserts, dressings, and sauces. These dried strawberries maintain their quality, ensuring nutrition, color, intact cell structure, and distinct sweet and tangy flavor. From strawberry powder, fragments, or sliced strawberries, MicroDried Strawberries can provide product developers with a single ingredient label with no sugar, color, or preservatives added.

A new non-GMO flavor is available to bring bold, consistent flavors to breaded and fried foods, pizza crusts, pasta salads, and more with Griffith Foods’ new Flavour Glaze 3.0. The enhanced sauce product is a versatile flavor delivery system available in six trendy flavor profiles including Bulgogi Korean BBQ, Fuego (intense chili spice), and Nashville Hot. Not only does Flavour Glaze 3.0 provide bold flavors, but when applied to breaded and fried foods, it also ensures food stays crispy for an additional 30 minutes.

INDUSTRY UPDATE

In an effort to enhance its product portfolio and capabilities, Woodland Gourmet, a leading provider of custom culinary solutions, has acquired Sevillo Fine Foods, a creator of chef-inspired, ready-to-eat frozen ingredients. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, Sevillo Fine Foods provides innovative, flavor-forward culinary ingredients, including fire-grilled vegetables, slow-roasted tomatoes, pickled vegetables, spreads, and sauces. These products will align with Woodland Gourmet’s commitment to delivering globally inspired, on-trend custom culinary solutions.

Symrise is relaunching its beverage incubator Califormulations and renaming the brand bWorks. The incubator offers end-to-end solutions from concept to market-ready products. It leverages consumer insights, winning flavors, rapid prototyping, as well as agile manufacturing. This unique incubator approach combined with expert taste solutions allows for speed to market at the right size with the right flavor profile. It will support customers with beverage innovation across three locations within the United States: Teterboro, N.J., Columbus, Ga., and Laguna Beach, Calif.

New research from Kemin showed that participants taking its natural sleep nootropic, DailyZz, reported twice the improvement in sleep quality, compared with the placebo group. Participants taking DailyZz also reported significant enhancement in daytime cognitive performance, including a five-fold improvement in focus, a 20-millisecond improvement in reaction time, and a 60% improvement in working memory.

DailyZz is a proprietary botanical blend of spearmint and green tea extracts that works while users sleep, providing them with post-sleep benefits for sharper cognitive daytime performance, including improved mental speed, focus, working memory, and decision-making.

Symrise, a global leader in flavor solutions, and Infusd Nutrition, an innovative solubility technology company, have partnered to revolutionize nutritional offerings in food, beverage, and supplement markets. The partnership aims to launch and distribute a new range of premium active products, providing the most popular fat-soluble and insoluble nutritional ingredients in an easy to formulate water-soluble form.

For example, Symrise will launch an active living portfolio comprised of Infusd-enabled water-soluble ingredients such as omega-3. For the first time, these ingredients can be added at efficacious levels, with proven stability and great taste, to finished consumer products, the companies claim.ft

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