Functional confectionery can deliver vitamins, fibres, or minerals to consumers in a tasty, and appealing way, and is one of the fastest growing product categories in the nutraceutical industry. But traditionally, confectionery production has always been heavily reliant on starch, and the use of starch can lead to cross-contamination of active ingredients in functional gummies.
One company aiming to address this challenge is Rousselot. FoodBev Media’s Harriet Jachec spoke with Rousselot business and product manager Jeff Daelman about the company’s SiMoGel solution, which enables the production of fortified gummies in a starch-free environment, eliminating the risk of cross-contamination associated with production in starch moulds.
According to Rousselot, SiMoGel offers a significantly optimised production process with lower costs; opportunities for innovating with 3D shapes, layered colours, stripes and fillings; a drying process that takes only a few minutes, instead of the usual 24 hours, and transparent end products boasting rapid flavour release.
Daelman told Jachec: “Starch has been used by confectionery manufacturers since the 1920s as it’s cheap and flexible and it has a very high production output per hour.
“So starch is nice for basic products, but when producing something with an active ingredient, the starch kind of gets in the way. But with SiMoGel you can use metal moulds, silicone mould etc which are washable, clean and hygienic.”
When asked why more consumers were demanding functional confectionery, Daelman said: “I would say that there is now this grey area between food and pharmaceuticals, as people want to live healthily and take supplements, but they don’t want to take pills, tablets etc.
“They’re looking for more interesting ways to take supplements, and a gummy is a perfect format.”
When asked exactly how SiMoGel works, Daelman told Jachec: “SiMoGel is, in essence, a pure gelatin, and it gives you fast gelation, as gelation times are as low as six minutes.
In the case of silicone moulds, usually you have very long production lines, 30m or longer because of the gelation times. If you bring that time down you can either run your machine faster or you can build smaller lines, reducing costs.”
Daelman also told Jacehc about the newly-discovered capabilities of SiMoGel: “In the last few months, we’ve discovered that we have the possibility to deposit directly into blister packs. Basically, you can deposit the hot slurry into the blister, seal it and it’s finished.
It’s a moulding and packaging in one, so that means you require less manual labour and it reduces equipment costs, and it’s a very nice way of presenting functional gummies to consumers.”
Presented by: Harriet Jachec
Edited by: Anya Keiller
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024
