Premium Ingredients Launches Substitute for Guar Gum

Premium Ingredients has launched two new products, Premigum XPJ-12008 and Premigum XPJ-12017. Both were tested in a standard model system for apple juice and provide similar viscosity levels at slightly lower dosages compared to guar gum.

12 Jul 2012 --- One of the hottest topics nowadays within the food industry is the situation of guar gum. Sky rocketing prices and limited availability resulted in an urgent requirement for guar substitution for many food manufacturers. To fulfill this customers need, Premium Ingredients has taken a different approach than many other ingredient companies.

As one of the leading companies in the sector of functional ingredients for processed foods and many years of experience in the development of these products, it is obvious to Premium Ingredients that there is no “one solution fits all” substitute for guar gum. Therefore its R&D team started to develop guar gum substitutes application by application always having in mind the specific customer requirements for each application.

A very demanding application with urgent requests from Premium Ingredients' customers is the area of fruit beverages. One of the challenges is that the required viscosity depends on customer and region and needs flexible stabilizer systems which work perfectly at different pH levels (normally a low pH environment). Another requirement is that the incorporation of the stabilizer does not result in too much foaming during processing to avoid air bubbles in the juice.

Bearing the above requirements in mind, Premium Ingredients has launched two new products, Premigum XPJ-12008 and Premigum XPJ-12017. Both were tested in a standard model system for apple juice and provide similar viscosity levels at slightly lower dosages compared to guar gum. Sedimentation was measured using a Lumisizer and resulted in better stability for Premigum XPJ-12008 and Premigum XPJ-12017 compared to guar gum.

Another application area of great interest for the substitution of guar gum is mayonnaise. The challenge for this application is having stabilizer solutions that work in cold as well as in hot processing and are suitable for egg and non-egg formulas. The oil content and the required texture are also very important criteria for the selection of the right stabilizer system.

The newly launched products Premigum XCS-12030 and Premigum XCS-12035 complement the current range of non-guar based stabilizer systems for mayonnaise. They provide a creamy and short texture very similar to guar gum and do not result in normally not desired long and sticky textures as sometimes obtained by CMC based solutions.

Furthermore, Premium Ingredients has also designed two specific non-guar solutions for ketchup, another very demanding application in the sauces area. These two guar gum substitutes, Premigum XCS-12041 and Premigum XCS-12042, are based on CMC with a minority of tara and xanthan gum.

These two stabilizers for ketchup result in a smooth texture and clean mouthfeel without being too sticky or doughy. Choosing which one of the two products depends on the customers requirements in terms of texture, bearing in mind that Premigum XCS-12042 provides more viscosity and body to the ketchup.