Dutch start-up's food preservation technology taps into fiber and food waste trends

30 Jan 2020 --- Dutch start-up TuttiFoodi has launched its first product Daily Fruit & Fibre Mix. The combination of fresh fruit and dietary fiber in dry form can be prepared with dairy and/or water in a blender to create smoothies or stirred into breakfast cereals for an additional fruit and fiber boost, the company notes. With FiberedFresh, TuttiFoodi’s “revolutionary and patented preservation technology,” the company naturally processes food, while maintaining a fresh taste and almost all of its original nutrients with a shelf life that can span two years.

The sourcing and production of the company’s Daily Fruit & Fibre Mix happens in Kenya, ensuring the products incorporate fresh, ripe fruit. It gets picked at peak ripeness and is immediately processed. This means that the product is made with fruit that is richer in flavor, nutrients and vitamins. TuttiFoodi also increases the income of local farmers and producers, creating local job opportunities and contributes to fighting food waste and post-harvest loss, the company notes.

Speaking to FoodIngredientsFirst, Gijs Weenink, Chief Technology Officer at the company, says industry is ready for the launch. “Response from consumer tests and product analysis have been positive, the supply chain is ready and test productions were successful. The launch was logical and we are now ready for further up scaling our production facility,” he explains.

“In Kenya, there is ample good quality fruit available, we can have a social impact and reduce food waste. Also, there is a potential to implement more production hubs near local farmers. Chance also played a role,” Weenink adds. “The same conditions may be found in other countries also, but we were introduced to our current Kenyan partner Azuri Health through our network and not only found out all of the above, but also got to enjoy the cooperation with Azuri Health.”

The Daily Fruit & Fibre Mix is the first ever launched FiberedFresh product and is available in two flavors – Tropical Summer and Caribbean Breeze.

Meanwhile, food preservation is an important industry topic, and according to Weenink, it is driven by two things: convenience and food waste. “Convenience is an industry priority because you can get your daily fruit and fiber intake without the hassle of hauling fresh fruit into your home and peeling it. Yet, it is completely natural and tastes fresh,” he continues. “Fighting food waste is also important because we also can use fruits that are odd sized or ‘wonky’ and because nothing gets wasted, there will also be less waste in consumers’ fridges or overripe fruit that has to be thrown away.”

FiberedFresh uses the unique properties of a dietary fiber in combination with a low-temperature dewatering process. This ensures that the original taste, nutrients and vitamins are captured until later release by adding water.

TuttiFoodi aims to make the FiberedFresh technology also available to other food companies to develop a wide array of new products to contribute to a fair food system worldwide, notes the company.

“We want to prove that our FiberedFresh technology is embraced by consumers. We chose to do that with a product based on tropical fruit because this is tasty and rich in vitamins which our encapsulation technology will preserve, but also because we can contribute to reducing post harvest loss in this chain,” Weenink further notes. “Our main goal is to have a positive impact on our food system by developing many more products likely with larger food players. Thus, our impact is much bigger than we would ever be able to achieve on our own.”

By Elizabeth Green

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