Mastertaste makes healthy flavours with Active Botanicals range

There is a strong shift away from artificial additives, including flavourings, in European prepared foods, largely since health implications seem to be an unknown quantity.

Many ingredients firms are seeking out natural alternatives that would allow products containing them to have clean labels.

At the same time, ingredients that can actively contribute to a foods healthy profile are also proving popular - particularly when they come from a natural botanical.

The new range from Mastertaste, the flavour and fragrance ingredients division of Kerry, consists of active natural flavours that include the extracts consumers most closely associate with promoting health.

Extracts include the likes of black and green tea, rooibos, chamomile and citrus, which came up trumps in consumer research on the subject.

The range was developed by botanical experts who sought out the highest-quality cultivars, containing optimum quantities of the health-bestowing component - be it polyphenols, flavonoids or caffeine.

The firm then developed extraction processes to preserve as much of the health benefit and taste as possible.

"In order to maintain a traditional profile and an ideal concentration without losing the positive properties, Mastertaste conducts each state of development - extraction, distillation and concentration - in house," said the firm.

Mastertaste also puts the extracts and end applications though quality control tests, including analytical and sensory evaluation, throughout their shelf life so that it can ensure the claims it is making about them hold up.

Lorena Mariani, Mastertaste's beverage technologist and expert in botanical extracts, said "Botanical extracts represent the best way to improve and maintain a healthy lifestyle using all the benefits that nature has provided to them for centuries."

The new EU nutrition and health claims regulation, which came into effect this year, is expected to have some effect on marketing of products aimed at consumers concerned with health.

In the first instance, a positive list is to be drawn up of ingredients and nutrients for which the health benefits are so well established by science that they are generally accepted.

For other ingredients, companies will have to put together a dossier of scientific evidence for their benefits for review by the European Food Safety Authority.

As for botanicals, however, The European Botanical Forum criticised the new regulation in July on the grounds that it does not include any reference to the traditional use of botanicals as food ingredients.

Given that Mastertaste has based development of its range around consumer perceptions rather than direct scientific evidence, however, it seems unlikely that this will have an impact on its success.

Rather, just labelling a product as 'containing green tea extract' or 'made with rooibus' these days is sufficient for the consumer to make the health connection.

The launch of the Active Botanicals range follows closely behind Mastertaste's introduction of its Botanical Collection.

The Botanical Collection, which consists of more than 90 different extracts, is made using a process that allows for specific aromatic factions to be isolated, then blended into a custom solution for use in beverage or dairy products.

The primary uses for this collection are expected to be beverages - both alcoholic and non-alcoholic - and dairy products, especially those positioned on a health platform.