Already emerged in bakery and meat applications, JPS said this week that it will be pushing the fibres into areas such as ice cream, beverages, particularly cocoa -, soy- and calcium-enriched beverages, dips, mayonnaises, toppings and fruit fillings.
The German company recently opened a new production plant, with a capacity of 4,000 metric tons for colloidal systems, near Dresden. In addition to colloidal microcrystalline cellulose sold under the vivapur mcg brand, JRS is turning out a range of wheat and oat fibre colloidal types (vitacel wfg and hfg).
The functionality of the colloidal structure after applying shear forces is based on the formation of a three-dimensional network that, for example, acts in an emulsion and texture-stabilising manner, makes the substitution of fats and oils possible, prevents syneresis, controls the size of ice crystals and stabilises foam.
Characteristic properties of colloidal systems include high stability, inert behaviour, independence from temperature, pH value or other influences as well as taste-neutrality.
A new report published last week by Datamonitor shows that the UK, along with Germany (€176) has the highest spending functional food consumers in Europe, while Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden have the lowest.
France has the fastest growing market with the number of functional food and drinks consumers tripling over the past five years and set to grow to almost 4 million by 2007.
Of particular interest for companies such as JRS the report higlighted the growth of gut health products across the European market. According to the report, these products generated the most sales by value in 2002 (£111 million), predicted to reach £159 million in 2007.