KEY INTERVIEW: Conscious Food Gives Sweet Relief to Food Manufacturers

09 Feb 2015 --- Kristina Locke, founder and managing director of Conscious Food, has passion for real food and for creating a healthy body and mind through the promotion of a healthy digestive system. She considers this to be the foundation of health. She created Conscious Food in 2008 and has launched SugaVida, a natural, sustainable, organic sweetener. Harvested from the Palmyra palm tree in south eastern India, this product has naturally occurring vitamins and minerals and lays claim to many health benefits. Locke talked to FoodIngredientsFirst about her goal to heal through food.

SugaVida is extracted from the nectar of the Palmyra palm tree and has been used in ayurvedic medicine for centuries in India. In its present application, SugaVida can be added to commercial products to reduce refined sugar content and calories, and increase a food’s nutritional value, while also adding valuable nutrients. The product has been proven to lower blood sugar and heralded for its anti-diabetic properties. As Locke explains: “SugaVida can be used on an industrial scale in ice cream, confectionery, bakery products and cereals, but consumers may also want to use it as a superfood supplement due to all its vitamins & minerals and anti-diabetic properties."

“We’ve also had reports of improved sleep, mental focus and athletic performance from people taking SugaVida, as well as reports of lower rates of respiratory disease, lower cholesterol and heart conditions,” she continued.

A white paper that includes a number of internal studies is due for release and Locke is keen to champion a raft of benefits that include the product’s antioxidant activity, analgesic properties and anti-inflammatory properties. 

“This really is a superfood,” she says. “What’s more it is sustainable and organic, and because it has double the sweetness of refined sugar, you only need to use half the amount in food development. This creates a low-sugar, low calorie product.”

When Locke created Conscious Food in 2008, she had spent a period of time in India exploring how to achieve balance in the body through nutrition and also yoga and ayurvedic principles. The company was built on its first product, D’Mix. D’Mix is a mix of seeds and herbs that can be used to prime the digestive system and restore balance to the body.

Whilst to some this may sound a bit alternative, Locke shares her principles with what most manufacturers of dietary supplements and probiotics strive for. She just went about the most natural way of finding a solution.

“When we launched D-Mix, which is a blend of herbs and seeds that activate the digestive enzymes in order to prime the gut for the job in hand, we discovered that 90% of people do not chew their food properly,” Locke explained. “This has led to a raft of gut-related diseases, which can lead to other health problems. Digestion is the foundation of health and our mission is to heal through food first.”

D’Mix is now distributed in 11 countries and recommended by health practitioners and healthcare professionals around the world as a tool to help the over-worked system restore itself.

In furthering her ayurvedic studies, Locke discovered the natural sweetener derived from the palmyra palm tree and found that, despite its many reported benefits, nobody was producing it in a palatable way, and it was commercially unavailable in the UK and US. 

“SugaVida is produced in a similar way to coconut sugar, which is from the tree nectar. Farmers, or tappers, make a slit in the blossom of the fruit and wait for the nectar to drip from it. This has to be done twice daily, otherwise the slit will dry up and won’t drip any more. The ‘tapper’ is the person who looks after the trees and extracts the nectar. A tapper will have up to 50 palm trees trees on his land and for 8-9 months of the year, he produces the nectar,” she said.

The tappers are part of a cooperative and work with the Palmyra Research Institute to ensure that all the nectar produced is traceable, sustainable and pure. This makes it harder for impure varieties to enter the market.

“Once captured, the nectar is gently heated and evaporated. This dehydrates it and it can be granulated into a sugar. This process gives minimal loss of nutrients.”

In terms of nutrients, SugaVida is packed full, which is why Locke describes her product as a superfood. Among its claims are: naturally occurring bioavailable B12, B6 and B1, as well as iron, potassium and magnesium. Its fibre content is also thought to be significant in treating cholesterol and digestive issues such as constipation.

Once processed, the dried sugar product is shipped in bulk to the UK, where it is packed at a Soil Association approved facility. It can be supplied in small pack for the consumer and in industrial quantities for commercial production.

Locke has had a lot of interest from food manufacturers who are either trying to reduce sugar content or increase nutrient content in their products.

Coming to the UK market in March will be Taywell Ice Creams’ new healthy launch. Using a combination of stevia, erythritol and SugaVida, Taywells can bring the sugar content of its ice cream product down from 25g/100g to just 3g/100g.

Locke thinks this kind of combination technique will become more popular. “By using just SugaVida, you can’t make massive reduced calorie claims, because the calorie content is the same as sugar, while you only need to use half the amount to get the same sweetness, so that is a huge benefit. But products like stevia have no calories, so that brings the calorie content right down. But using the products in combination, you get the best of all worlds: a better taste, low sugar/calorie content and a great nutrient profile,” she said.

“We are in talks with a number of food manufacturers currently, mostly making bakery, cereal and snack products. Most of them want to use SugaVida in order to make natural health claims rather than go down the fortification route. As consumers are increasingly unwilling to compromise on taste, then the caramel tones of SugaVida are also desirable, with no aftertaste.

“Companies can work with our food technologists to create a portfolio of applications and then use the nutrient claims as part of their marketing,” said Locke.

The future is bright for SugaVida. Locke has spent a lot of time in the US – “they are very enthusiastic and open to new products.”- and thinks that Australia and the Middle East will be big markets for Conscious Foods.

“We need to be realistic when we think about sugar in our diets,” she concludes. “When you look at different cultures, every one has a bit of sweet in their diet. It’s all about balance and quality. We clearly need to be more mindful of what we consume, and we need to be respectful of our planetary resources. I think we can all use SugaVida to address that balance.”

by Kelly Worgan