Details
A new line of all-natural food safety and shelf-life enhancement products has been introduced to the market to provide effective end-to-end alternatives to chemically-based food sanitizers and preservatives. The products are also intended to enhance product taste, sensory profiles and shelf-life of fresh produce, seafood and poultry as well as prepared and processed foods.
The new patent-pending products are synergistic complexes of GRAS and organic components that provide antimicrobial/antioxidant functionality and will allow food and beverage producers to offer the ‘cleaner' labels that industry surveys show consumers increasingly demand.
Extensive testing on the ingredients shows that when used in dip, sauce and soup applications the antimicrobial product proved a more effective shelf-life enhancer than sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate whilst improving the overall flavour profiles. In third party lab tests, the natural food wash removed 99.999% of bacteria and over 98% of pesticide residues from fresh produce, making it a suitable replacement for chlorine-based sanitizers.
The products, branded eatSafe Natural Food Wash and eatFresh Natural Antimicrobial, are a two-part solution for safer, longer-lasting and better tasting foods in both their raw and cooked or processed states - combining antimicrobial control of bacteria, yeasts and moulds with antioxidant properties that improve sensory characteristics and preserve freshness.
Both products control pathogens via a cell electro-potential disruption mechanism. The efficacy of these products is derived from the synergistic combination of components. Unlike many other sanitizing and preservative products, eatFresh and eatSafe have a broad spectrum of efficacy, with the ability to handle different pathogens by varying use levels, rather than more traditional methods of combining different preservative.
The suppliers, Grow Green Industries and P.L. Thomas, believe these all-natural products open up new opportunities for consumer product development and can significantly reduce overall product wastage for all-natural foods and beverages.
The content in this entry has been obtained from publicly available information sources only (e.g. press releases, website and trade press articles) and is subject to completion of a validation process with the technology supplier.
Potential Benefits
These products provide opportunities for extending the shelf life of all natural products where the use of existing chemically based food sanitizers and preservatives may not be possible within the context of the product offering. In this respect, the solutions can contribute to environmental objectives by reducing wastage of natural food products in the supply chain and in the home.
Consultant View
There are other solutions and technologies available which also seek to extend the shelf life of fresh produce. Readers interested in this area should make further searchers of the REID database using combinations of filters and terms such as “fruit and veg”, “shelf life extension”, “active packaging”, “modified atmosphere”, “controlled atmosphere”, “antimicrobial” and “scavengers”.
