The food sector has to innovate constantly in order to keep up with changes in the ever more demanding requirements of its consumers.
Changes over the past 20 years have entailed a revolution in food technology. Healthy food products with “added ingredients” (omega3, calcium, etc.) are driving a new generation of avid consumers of healthy solutions, with a growing demand for “clean label” products.
Vegetable fibre plays a fundamental role in food. Initially, it was just an ingredient with nutritional value for the consumer, but now it is also being used as a functional ingredient, meaning it naturally improves the properties of the food product in terms of its composition, processing, and texture.
Vegetable fibre doesn’t only offer nutritional value, so it can replace traditional food additives thanks to its ability to act as a gelling agent, or to thicken, emulsify, or hydrate with the very same properties but in a much more natural manner.
100% natural vegetable fibre offers multiple benefits since it makes it possible to replace or reduce the use of traditional ingredients such as gelling agents (carrageenan, starches), hydrocolloids (gums, cellulose, etc.), and even potentially allergenic additives (protein, egg, soya, gluten, etc.), without modifying flavour and while improving texture. In addition to reducing fats and sugars in foods, its excellent capacity to retain water makes it an option to be used as a replacement for phosphates in food processing.
Therefore, it satisfies our consumers’ most demanding requirements, making it possible to label the resulting products as free from allergens and GMOs, as well as suitable for vegan and vegetarian consumption, a market that now represents over 600 million people around the world and which increases yearly in most countries, representing in many of them between 4 and 10% of the population.
Today, food technology must be capable of responding to new consumer trends by creating specific and innovative products for each sector. For that reason, at Grupo Barcelonesa, we’ve committed to creating an innovative natural fibre. To achieve this, we’ve characterised and selected dozens of innovative fibres, from potato to carrot and even citrus, from different locations around the world, and each with its own technical specifications and properties optimised for each application.
Since each company has specific needs according to the type of food product and how it’s processed, Grupo Barcelonesa has sought out the very best producers to combine different fibres in a custom manner. So, through our own blending and analytical control processes, we can now offer Fibrean, a high-quality product capable of meeting practically any and all specific needs.
Of its main qualities, worthy of note is its ability to remain stable at any temperature/pH as well as its excellent water retention capacity (from 1:15 to 1:25) and its stability and suspension of solids in milk-based beverages and juices, among others. In addition, it doesn’t modify the flavour or the colour of the product and is free from allergens and GMOs.
Fibrean solves the needs of each of the sectors we work with: meat, bakery, soups and sauces, vegan foods, and milk- and vegetable-based beverages. For product managers, Fibrean offers the most “clean label” alternative as it satisfies the growing and stringent demands of consumers.
If you’d like a technician to help you find the best solution for your company, please contact us.
