Capol’s microencapsulation tech preserves wow factor of natural colors
02 May 2023 | Capol
Addressing the need for natural color solutions in confectionery, Capol’s Vivapigments line uses microencapsulation to bring water-soluble extracts to fat-based and dry applications. The patented technology is also being used as an alternative to titanium dioxide, which preserves calcium carbonate by surrounding it in rice protein. Pablo Elizondo, head of R&D at Capol, explains how Vivapigments is also being explored in applications beyond confectionery, like chicken analogs.
This is Missy Green from CNS Media.
I'm here at ISM 2023 and I'm with Pablo from Cable.
So Pablo is head of R&D and he's got some really good insights on colors.
So Pablo, tell us about, Cel's Viva Pigments technology and how does it fit within the natural color landscape.
So Viva pigments themselves are actually a turn on natural colors where we're taking natural extracts.
And using our patented technology to encapsulate them and make them pigments, so the main difference really is a regular natural color is going to be water soluble and therefore will work in a lot of products like beverages or bakery goods where you have water in your product, but at the end of the day there's a lot of markets that haven't really been able to do the turn towards natural colors because they're fat-based or dry-based applications that simply can't get the power out of natural colors to be able to replace this.
And so what we do with Viva pigments is try to target these markets and we're usable in other markets as , but in these specific markets there was no real solution for it and now there is.
What we do is we take natural extracts, we encapsulate them in rice protein, and then mill them down to make pigments and so they disperse very in fat.
They disperse and cover very sugars and other powders, so it's it's a very useful technology.
Yeah, so one of the things about natural extracts is that they're water soluble and so when you have a water soluble extract over white it's gonna work very nicely and give you a very nice color, but as soon as you go onto a black surface like hard sugar panning, you're gonna need the titanium dioxide to be able to to cover though a very nice thing about viva pigment.
Is that with their opacity you're actually able to simply cover both the white and the black, and , so our titanium dioxide replacement works if you want a white, but if what you want is color, you might be able to skip that altogether and go straight to Viva Pigments and get a very nice opacity and cover that chocolate very.
So this sounds like it could be useful in the titanium dioxide replacement area you're talking about white.
Yeah, nice transition there, but.
What we've done is we've taken one of the common solutions for calcium for whitening, which is calcium carbonate, and we've run it through our patented process.
So what we're doing is we're encapsulating the calcium carbonate in rice protein, and this gives some sort of protection towards pH and and easier dispersability in a lot of products.
And so right now we have something that works extremely in hard sugar panning, and you'll be able to show that hopefully afterwards as , but.
In other applications where there is water, we're still pushing forward to get better solutions, but it should still be able to disperse in most solutions, and the opacifying agent will work perfectly.
The whitening, we're still trying to get a brighter white color to be able to fit other solutions, but in hard sugar panning we've gotten great, great results at significantly lower dosages than other solutions we've encountered.
OK, so is the rice.
Starch part of the titanium dioxide replacement at allrice starch, no, it's rice protein, so we're encapsulating the calcium carbonate in rice protein as.
So we're doing our same same processes.
So therefore calcium carbonate reacts with acids to form.
Carbon dioxide and so it foams a lot in low pH applications and with the encapsulation process we've managed to reduce the foaming significantly and also protect it from from the acid in general and in hard sugar panning we've like I said we've gotten great great results.
And what other sort of challenges does the natural color industry face?
The, the challenges are are pretty standard, and they've been the same challenges for a while.
The biggest ones are getting a true red and getting a a nice blue that is gonna be heat stable and and pH stable.
So we have some solutions in terms of a dark blue.
We're gonna be able to work with our red cabbage, but pH long run might not be the best.
But our spirulina that we've encapsulated in our, in our view of pigment technology will actually have better heat protection, better stability than than regular spirulina extract, and in terms of red.
Similarly, we've come up with blends of colors to get that nice fire engine red.
You'll maybe show some some of the examples we have with our with our gummy bears, but it's mixing different natural colors to get that nice fire engine red color that is usable in gummy bears, rages, all kinds of of confectionery applications.
With regards to titanium dioxide, do you see other markets jumping on board with this?
Yeah, despite the possibility of the ruling being overturned by the European Court, consumers are now aware of titanium dioxide in their food, and now they're going to try to keep an eye out for that in the label.
And so.
As long as we're keeping an eye out, the market is going to have to adapt and change towards finding alternatives.
And so we're working very hard to find the solutions that are going to work very in other applications.
Right now our Xtp White works great in confectionery, but we have to find better solutions and specific solutions for other applications, and we're we're working very hard to get that.
What other kind of applications are you looking at right now?
Fillings for cookies, for example, bakery goods, meat analogs for chicken, for example, they're, they're looking for that opacifying white, so right now that's one of our challenges to get in there, and legislation has to follow as because right now in the US, for example, calcium carbonate is only usable in confectionery applications and so we're hoping to be able to nudge the FDA in the right direction and saying that we should be able to use this.
It's a grass ingredient we should be able to use it in other applications as.
OK, thank you.
