Supercritical extracts represent the natural flavour profile of the botanical raw material almost perfectly.
Supercritical extracts represent the natural flavour profile of the botanical raw material almost perfectly.
The gentle process widely avoids hydrolysis, oxidation, isomerisation and artefact formation of sensitive ingredients. This means clove bud oils with the full content of eugenyl acetate, which is lost during steam distillation, cardamom oils with a natural ester content or marjoram oils with their genuine sabinene hydrate acetate content, which is indispensable for the typical aroma of the product.
Fennel, anise and star anise oils are characterised by a high trans-anethol content. This is isomerised to the more toxic cis-anethol and oxidised to anise aldehyde on low scale during steam distillation but not in case of CO2 extraction.
Supercritical extracts of ginger have both a high content of volatile flavour components and a high content of pungent gingerols. The ratio can also be influenced and adjusted to the intended use. CO2 vanilla extracts are available with 12percent, 26percent or even 95percent of natural ex-vanilla vanillin and therefore much more concentrated than hydro-alcoholic extracts.
Potentially allergenic proteins are no problem for nut flavours which are enriched by CO2 extraction. CO2 extracts thus are safe and powerful tools for flavourists to create premium quality food products.
FLAVEX Naturtextrakte GmbH is based in
Rehlingen, Germany. www.flavex.com
