Food Science

Increasing consumer demand for nutritionally rich and healthy foods is a key driver for the development of new food encapsulation technologies. There is much scope for innovation in this sector given the evolving market opportunities. The requirements for end products are becoming more and more complicated. The consumers demand low fat and low calorie foods, high nutritional value, multi-flavor perception, high quality and safety.

At the same time, traditional encapsulation methods face certain limitations when it comes to meeting these new demands. Within the industry, the trend is to seek materials that are stable through processing, enhance shelf life, mask the bitter taste of healthy nutrients, protect against oxidation and are effective in delivering the final nutritional value.

We are developing mesoporous silica particles as an effective encapsulation material – one that is safe, stable, cost effective and capable of addressing some of the key issues in the food industry, such as taste masking, controlled release and increased nutrient bioavailability.

It is also worth mentioning that amorphous silica is an approved food additive: E551 under EU regulations; categorized as “unlimited daily intake” under WHO regulations and that nanoporous silica falls under this category.

The control over these structural parameters makes them a suitable candidate for food encapsulation. They have the potential for taste and odor masking, increasing the bioavailability of the loaded actives, protecting the active against oxidation or deactivation for a longer shelf life, and the ability to customize the release profiles of flavors and ingredients. Additionally, they have a high loading capacity, which makes them very efficient and cost effective.