US-based PL Thomas has unveiled a new line of ingredients - Vivid Harvest Whole Food Powders, which are designed to offer a fruit and vegetable 'food replacement' experience in food and beverage products.
The new range comprises a patented technology that evaporates water molecules in foods without altering the active enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals or other phytonutrients while preserving the flavor, aroma, color and nutritional quality of the original materials in a way that enhances the consumer experience.
Unlike raw foods and other fruit and vegetable inclusion processes, the Vivid Harvest Whole Food Powders offers many processing advantages to food and beverage manufacturers, including a longer shelf-life, better flowability with less dusting, enhanced solubility and dispersibility, a better particle shape with greater density, and a lack of solvents or other adulterating processing aids.
Initially, PL Thomas is offering about 25 fruit-based products and 16 vegetable-based products. Vivid Harvest products include non-GMO fruits and vegetables, juices, pulps and purees.
The company intends to expand into new fruits and vegetables, with the potential to create whole food powders out of non-traditional ingredients such as salmon.
PL Thomas New Product Development manager Sid Hulse said that the technology behind Vivid Harvest delivers nutrition and sensory benefits in an ingredient form that is easier to incorporate and process than liquid products, drum dried, spray dried or freeze dried products.
"At PL Thomas, we plan to work with food and beverage companies in their product development efforts, providing them with concepts and support for their commercialization process," he added.
Vivid Harvest Whole Food Powders will be custom manufactured for PL Thomas by Columbia Phytotechnology (CPT) which is based in Dalles, Oregon.
Custom variants of powders can be developed from multiple fruits and vegetables, blended during a liquid phase prior to the evaporation process to ensure uniformity of the finished granules more effectively than a mixed powder process.
CPT has developed a gentle, evaporative process using light for creating whole food powders that preserves the nutritional and sensory integrity of the original materials. It creates a solid granule with a uniform shape and non-porous structure that is moisture resistant and has a low surface tension.
