SDI JUL09.qxd - Soft Drinks International

30 BEVERAGE FOCUS
Soft Drinks International – JULY 2009
Healthy,
yet tasty
beverage trends
Frutarom
introduces its
concepts and
solutions for
flavoured and
functional
waters.
Global flavour and fine ingredients company
Frutarom offers a diverse range of products
for the flavoured water and ‘Water Plus’ markets:
The company has superior ranges of FTNF (natural
flavours derived ‘From The Named Fruit’),
superfruit products and herbal extracts.
Furthermore, it has been working on a broad
portfolio of concepts targeted at manufacturers
of near-water products, called EFLA New Water.
EFLA New Water extracts were especially
developed for Water Plus applications and, as
such, provide excellent clarity and fulfil all the
requirements necessary for flavoured water applications:
they are heat- and acid-stable as well as
water-soluble. The EFLA New Water range
includes a variety of herbal extracts such as maté
tea, green tea, red vine leaf, elderflower and more.
The extracts can be used together with other water
white and water soluble ingredients, and they can
be combined with other functional ingredients
such as soluble fibres. Possible concepts could
include, for example, calcium and fibre enriched
products that target digestion and bone health.
Neuravena, a wild green oat extract which is
proven to enhance mental health and cognitive
function – is also suitable for near water concepts.
A large number of these extracts have already
made their way onto retail shelves and are performing
very well.
Natural choice
Functional and healthy food ingredients are more
than just passing trends. In recent years in particular,
a great deal of activity has been seen in the
water plus market, with one of the major trends
being ‘naturalness’. Consumers are paying greater
attention to product labels and trying to avoid Enumbers
and unnecessary ingredients. It has been
shown that they are also starting to prefer a more
natural and thus more trustworthy taste profile
and to pay more for products that are more credi-
ble and have a higher degree of authenticity.
Together with authenticity, freshness and refreshment,
natural flavours will continue to play a part
in the consumer’s choice and frequency of re-purchase.
Generally, the trend is moving towards
non-standard, creative flavour combinations.
Flavours are used to impart flavour and taste to
food products, as stated in food regulations. But
they have many additional functions: in beverages,
they are typically used to impart freshness
and authenticity, and to provide refreshment or
thirst quenching properties. Most commonly, they
underline the utility and the functionality of the
entire product concept. Ultimately, a flavour is
used to make a product appealing to the consumer
and pleasant to eat or drink, so it is a key component
and has a direct impact on whether a product
will be bought again or not.
With the complexities of water plus products
and the different functional ingredients available
today, the job of flavouring water is certainly a
challenge. For example, the taste profile of some
extracts is more bitter or astringent than others.
There are two ways of dealing with this: either
you identify the character of the taste and combine
it with a suitable flavour so that the ‘off note’
turns into an advantage and underlines the taste
of the end product. The other alternative is to use
masking flavours to disguise any unpleasant offnotes.
More than just a flavour
Apart from their primary function – to provide
good taste – other functions of flavours are investigated
and discussed. Herbal extracts, for example,
can have antioxidant properties. And when it
comes to the question of whether adding flavour
shortens the shelf life of bottled water, it can actually
be said that flavours have a protective effect
on other additives. Of course plain, clean water
has the longest shelf life because it does not contain
anything that could serve as a nutrient to
micro-organisms. But almost every added organic
ingredient, can in principle, be a substrate for promoting
growth of micro-organisms. However, due
to the protective effect that flavours can have on
other additives, the shelf lives that can be
achieved for flavoured waters are in line with
consumer expectations and storing habits.