Gum Acacia Earns Investment to Improve Functionalities
16 Jun 2015 --- Convinced that the functionalities of gum acacia can be further developed and improved, French company Alland & Robert, a global leader in gum acacia, has invested in new equipment including a laser particle sizer and an ultrasonic homogenizer.
Whilst gum acacia, a 100% natural exudate harvested in the African Sahel, is used by numerous industry sectors, its various functions and its nutritional and dietary properties are far from being fully exploited. In order to study its potential as well as to bring increasingly efficient technical assistance to its clients, Alland & Robert has recently acquired new advanced tools for its Research & Development department.
With the new equipment it is possible to characterise emulsions - an important application of gum acacia for a number of products, including soft drinks, flavourings, perfumes and cosmetics. More specifically, they allow Alland & Robert to measure the size and distribution of essential oil droplets in the emulsions in order to validate their quality.
These two tools are the latest additions to the extremely sophisticated Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) equipment, as well as quadruple detection equipment, bought by the company in 2012 for almost €200,000.
Alland & Robert is the only manufacturer in its sector that invested in this kind of research material allowing it to study and characterise polymers by separating the molecules that constitute them according to their hydrodynamic volume (the volume of molecules surrounded by a layer of water).
“As an expert in gum acacia since 1884, we have to offer our clients a high quality service in order to respond to their needs and to develop made-to-measure products,” states Frédéric Alland, CEO of Alland & Robert. “With this in mind, Alland & Robert has always considered Research & Development as an integral part of its work and dedicates €1 million to this field every year. We have advanced equipment and we are sometimes the only manufacturer in our sector to have them, thus fulfilling a key commitment to society. That also allows us to identify new functionalities of gum acacia and to improve the quality of our products.”
Alland & Robert’s R&D approach is based on two pillars: Fundamental long term research for which it collaborates with its scientific and university partners, in particular with UMR IATE (a joint research unit in ‘Agropolymer engineering and Emerging technologies’) - INRA in Montpellier; and research that arises from listening to clients and the market, in order to anticipate trends and to support clients facing difficulties with composition and implementation or help them with any technological issues.
