The flavor and fine ingredients firm said that flavored waters were driving new concepts at Frutarom, with the aim of offering great taste combined with health benefits to product formulations.
The bottled water market in the US is currently estimated to be worth more than $5bn.
A Frutarom spokeswoman told FoodNavigator-USA.com that the company aims to add “complexity” to flavor profiles instead of just releasing another strawberry or cherry flavor, for example.
She said: “We see customers increasing the market with value-added products, healthy-for-you and functional waters as the market continues to grow.
“We are working with our ingredient group to co-develop products which have some functionality in them, (such as green tea-energy).
“We have also developed products where we use superfruit extracts as part of the beverage.
“It is seldom down to the flavouring itself to deliver nutritional benefit, but the beverage concepts we develop do deliver nutritional and health benefits.
“Our flavourings are developed to work in unison with other functional ingredients, natural juices and the like to ensure that the beverage itself has all the attributes that our consumers desire.”
The company has been exploring elderberry, acai, yumberry, blueberry and pomegranate in trial formulations in their dedicated beverage applications laboratories.
Jim Moore, Frutarom’s global category manager, beverages, said: “As raw materials, these ‘superfruits’ are hard to come by, making them suited to premium products.”
He added that they were continually exploring alternative sources and “finding that these optional sources sometimes yield higher concentrations of vitamins and polyphenols.”
Natural extracts
Similarly, from a good-for-you and healthy standpoint, Moore gave the example of Frutarom's Neuravena, a wild green oat special extract, which contains phytonutrients that are said to influence the activity of cerebral enzymes relating to mental health and cognitive function.
Moore said: “Along with many other natural extracts in this line, it also provides the purity, solubility and stability that are essential to manufacturers of flavored waters.
“Additionally, many of these extracts make a distinctive contribution to appealing taste, imparting a natural mouthfeel and giving added depth to the flavor profile.”
Recent Frutarom flavor blends include matching strawberry and cloves, lime and cracked pepper, and mango and ginger.
Bill Graham, vice president, sales, Frutarom USA, added: “Across many market segments, we’re seeing growing consumer interest and acceptance of new and novel fruit flavors, and it’s especially evident in the flavored water category, an area that we’ve been dedicated to.”
Frutarom said the market value for flavored bottled water was $500.3m in 2006 and is predicted to increase to $754m in 2012.