Growth of the soft drink market continues to outpace the overall food industry. In 2008, sales of soft drinks are expected to reach $97.2 billion, an increase of 5.3% over 2007. Opportunities abound for manufacturers to invest in and profit from dynamic drinking trends like convenience, health-enhancing products and “new age beverages”. Combine these factors – overall growth and emerging trends – and there is a large playing field for formulators to exercise their skills in developing new beverages with uniquely marketable benefits.
Growing demand for functional and nutritional beverages is shaping the course of the soft drinks industry. The result: a multitude of new product offerings on supermarket shelves, including:
• Products for enhanced well-being, with improved nutritional profile, such as low
sugar or reduced fat
• Energy-boosting soft drinks for today’s time-starved, stressed-out society
National Starch Food Innovation can help beverage makers differentiate their products by improving flavour, appearance, mouthfeel and shelf life in a wide variety of applications. Whether your product is a soft drink, juice, smoothie, coffee or energy drink, we have the right ingredients and technical expertise to take your idea from concept to production.
For over 50 years, National Starch Food Innovation has been the global leader in specialty starches to enhance performance, taste, shelf life and texture in beverages.
National Starch Food Innovation's specialty starches for beverage emulsions, which include flavour concentrates and clouds, are used to prepare a variety of soft drinks, such as carbonated and juice drinks, functional beverages and much more.
Our flagship product, PURITY GUM™ 2000 starch, can replace gum arabic without affecting taste or viscosity. It provides beverages with long-term stability and eliminates major viscosity variations – resulting in products with no ringing or sedimentation. We also play a big role in improving and enhancing texture with products like our TEXTRA starch that improves mouthfeel, especially in reduced-sugar beverages. And N-CREAMER 46 is particularly useful as a direct replacement for sodium caseinate in non-dairy coffee creamers and general purpose creamers.
Our team of experts is here to provide the research, development and analysis support to help you generate your next exciting beverage innovation.
• Product development
• Technical assistance
• Culinary support
• Applications formulation
• Material functionality
• Sensory testing
• Consumer insights
As leaders in starch technology, National Starch Food Innovation was the first company to develop several modified food starches to effectively match and enhance the performance of gum arabic in many beverage applications. Unlike gum arabic, our beverage emulsion stabilisers are not affected by climatic and political conditions that affect gum arabic sources. Specialty starches are also more economical to use than gum arabic because:
• Prices are typically considerably less on pound-for-pound basis
• Lower cost in use
Applications
• Carbonated soft drinks – emulsifiers to stabilise beverages and replace expensive
ingredients. Solutions which create cloudiness to mimic natural products
• Tea and coffee – ingredients that mask bitter notes and encapsulating starches for
flavoured coffees
• Creamers – ingredients to replace sodium caseinate and add creaminess
• Reduced sugar or low calorie drinks
• Energy / sports drinks – ingredients to stabilise nutrients, vitamins and actives
• Juice drinks – for pulpiness and stability during pasteurisation
• Alcoholic mixers – ingredients to add mouthfeel and texture
• Flavoured alcoholic beverages – ph 5 or less
Challenges
• Economics: replace high cost ingredients (gum arabic, sodium caseinate)
• Global supply uncertainties (gum arabic)
• Emulsion stability (cold temperature, pH, etc)
• Non-weighted emulsions
• Obesity concerns (fat and sugar reduction)
• Beverage performance (no sediment or ringing)
• Consistent opacity
• Improved flavour in low calorie drinks
• Flavour and colour consistency
• Neutral clouds
• Ease of processing