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7-May-2007
At Vitafoods 2007, Valensa International announced a new concept for providing the nutritional benefits whole fruit extracts in ingredients that offer broader, better nutritional value, easy formulation, better stability and a longer shelf-life. Called FruitAll™, these ingredients are puree+seed extract complexes that utilize supercritical CO2 extraction, advanced freeze-drying and re-formulation under vacuum to create a powder that resists degradation. The initial products of the FruitAll™ line are based on cranberries and oranges. Applications for FruitAll™ Cranberry and FruitAll™ Orange include tablets and two piece hard shell nutraceuticals, and as components of functional foods.

According to Dr. Rudi E. Moerck, President of Valensa, the technology used to create FruitAll™ is designed to closely mimic what nature delivers in fruits. "Mother nature keeps the healthy water soluble nutrients of fruits separate from the seeds whose oils contain healthy micronutrients. Normally, when this natural balance in the fruit is disturbed by grinding whole fruits and concentrating the resulting puree, the constituents begin to react with each other to afford a nutritionally questionable and off tasting product. Of particular concern is the rancification of the fruit seed oils which come in contact with the oxygen-rich constituents of the juice," he said. "FruitAll™ products avoid these concerns by using rigorous science-based separation and freeze drying technology to preserve the goodness of whole fruits," he added.

Valensa’s unique process for making FruitAll™ starts with separating the pericarp from the fruit seeds. The fruit seeds are then extracted by safe carbon dioxide extraction to create a fruit oil. The pericarp becomes a fruit puree. The whole fruit complex is then produced using a proprietary freeze drying process that protects all constituents from unwanted oxidation – a process that essentially recombines the puree with fruit seed oil under cold vacuum conditions that prevent the degradation seen in other common "whole fruit" products.

As one of the initial products of the new line, FruitAll™ Cranberry contains whole cranberry juice with virgin cranberry oil in a unique package that maintains the deep juice color, preserves the antioxidant juice constituents and adds the Omega-3, Omega-6, tocopherols and tocotrienols found in the cranberry seeds. FruitAll Orange is formulated with 20% chia seed oil to enhance the omega-3 content of the ingredient.

According to Moerck, the Valensa process is delivering the goodness of fruit to the consumer. "Whole extracts like those we do in FruitAll™ takes what nature has to offer and delivers it in ingredients that are easy to formulate with and offer better stability and shelf life," he said. " In a way, these ingredients offer more than what fresh fruit offers from a nutritional standpoint, because the extraction process used on the seeds makes the nutrients locked inside those seeds more bioavailable," he said.