SYRAL Strengthens Innovation Focus

Customer-oriented research and development enables SYRAL to develop new and ever-improved products that meet the requirements of the consumers. The European supplier of ingredients is simultaneously enlarging its technical support team, whose aim is to assist customers in industrialization and problem solving.

30/01/09 One year after acquiring five European Tate & Lyle plants, SYRAL is strengthening its innovation capabilities by building a new centre of excellence next to SYRAL’s European headquarters in Marckolsheim (France). SYRAL has a turnover of 1.3 billion Euros and is now the third largest producer of glucoses and other starch-based sweeteners in Europe.

The new building will host state-of-the art analytical laboratories, a large pilot hall and facilities for sensory research. Customer-oriented research and development enables SYRAL to develop new and ever-improved products that meet the requirements of the consumers. The European supplier of ingredients is simultaneously enlarging its technical support team, whose aim is to assist customers in industrialization and problem solving.

“The pilot plant will be dedicated to application work in the food sector, but also to some other food sectors and within the food sector we are working on different platforms. We have had a strong focus in the last few years on the nutrition and health sector, so that will go on and it’s really formulation dedicated to parts of the populations with special needs, such as the elderly or athletes or foods for people recovering from a disease. This is spread throughout the whole food application range, so it can be for different products from biscuits to beverages, to chocolates”, Anne Wagner, Vice President Innovation at SYRAL told FoodIngredientsFirst.

“Basically the last work we are doing is focusing on cereals and the snacks sector, where we developed on the one hand sugar free and no sugar added bars and breakfast cereals but also high protein bars which have an effect on satiety and also the same kind of development but then for recovery after sports efforts”, Wagner added. “We will also be doing some work coming from customers to rework some existing formulations – whether it is for the nutritional profile or for the functionality of our ingredients. We work on all our product range – it could be a glucose syrup or a blend of glucose syrup and fructose syrup or a blend of glucose syrup and sugar to gain a certain functionality in the end product”, she explained.

SYRAL manufactures a range of products including starches, sweeteners (glucose syrups, dextroses, maltodextrins and polyols), vegetable proteins and alcohol (traditional and bio-ethanol) for the food, pharmaceutical, chemical and pulp & paper industries. With much of their business based on commodity products, the company spends 3% of their turnover on R&D. “Basically innovation for Syral is customer and market driven development. Our first target as a company in general is always to look at the needs of the customer. In the R&D department we look at our raw materials, we are cereal transformers and we aim to make the best out of them. Here we work on the different parts of the cereals, be it soluble or insoluble fibre, the proteins, the germs or the starch which gives yield to a variety of products, starting off with hydrolyzing starch into a variety of different sweeteners”, Wagner explained.

SYRAL markets the sugar derived oligofructose Actlight and the company will be conducting a number of studies on the health potential of this product in the coming year. “We are doing some human trials on different populations with Actilight. We are doing trials on the elderly population. Here its related to immunity. We are doing some trials in the baby food sector and here it’s gut health and also linked to immunity. We are doing some trials on adults and here its linked to digestive comfort and abdominal pain for people who are not sick but have trouble with their digestive system”, Wagner said. Results will come out at several stages. The first on infant foods will be finishing in April/May, in September the one on adults will finish and the one on the elderly will finish at the beginning of next year.

Wagner revealed that the company several different new ingredients in the pipeline, but would not be very specific. “The one that is closest to the market is a new protein, which will probably come out during the spring”, she explained.

by Robin Wyers