Fortification Provides Hidden Health Benefits

With increasing awareness of the importance of preventive health measures among the world’s many populations, the science of vitamin and mineral fortification takes on greater significance. As constant health alerts in the media turn customers’ attention toward their own food and beverage consumption habits, annual sales tallies indicate consumers understand the importance of supplemental vitamins and minerals in the diet. Manufacturers have been putting a healthy spin on popular grocery items for years, but the pace of introductions has increased of late. Nowadays, orange juice with calcium, vitamin D and essential fatty acids (EFAs) is easy to find at the local grocer, and with advancesin technology, fortified Cheerios don’t taste unusual despite numerous vitamin and mineral stowaways. “[Fortification] is going on very heavily worldwide, which is good from a business point of view and a nutritional point of view, no question about it,” said Ram Chaudhari, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief scientific officer (CSO), Fortitech.

In some cases, manufacturers are fortifying because of government acts such as the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) 1998 mandate concerning grain products being fortified with folic acid. Fortification is commonplace in several grain products deemed staple for most of the U.S. population, such as enriched breads, flours, rice, pasta and many breakfast cereals. But consumers are quickly realizing this and other related mandates benefit them and are using buying power as an implicit mandate for healthier fortified offerings. “Mandatory fortification has increased [consumers’] awareness of the importance of certain vitamins and minerals, and this has directed them to look for ‘better for you’ food and beverages,” said Cristina Munteanu, food applications specialist, GTC Nutrition.

Added Massood Moshrefi, Ph.D., vice president, operations and technical services, InterHealth Nutraceuticals: “Consumers have become interested in using commonly consumed and easy-to-use products to obtain health benefits. We have seen more beverage products such as waters and fruit juices, along with dairy products, snack bars and cereals become more popular [for fortification] in the marketplace.”

The functional food and beverage market has become a large business—a $25 billion industry in 2006 and projected to gross $39 billion by 2011, according to Packaged Facts. Although fortified and functional foods don’t typically have the same additions, the philosophy driving each market is the same—add healthy ingredients to standard fare and hope those additions strike a chord with health-minded 3 consumers. At very least, the market sectors complement each other, and formulators are busy.

“We get calls from customers, sometimes just out of the blue,” Chaudhari said. “They say, ‘We’re looking for B complex vitamins, or antioxidants, or calcium and vitamin D to make some kind of health benefit or health claim on a product’.” But calls to fortify new foods can be like sailing a ship into uncharted waters.

Formulation Isn’t Easy

As manufacturers know, adding vitamins and minerals to a product doesn’t mean quickly combining ingredients and packaging them for sale. As fortification of popular and portable foods becomes the norm, ingredient suppliers are faced with an entire new set of challenges in creating singular add-ins or premixes, forced to consider solubility, stability, longevity and many other factors for finished-product suppliers in every corner of the marketplace.

For starters, consumers demanding fortified foods and beverages don’t want added vitamins and minerals to alter taste. “[They] want food and beverage products that deliver scientifically-proven health benefits without compromising taste or contributing to the products’ odor, color or texture,” Moshrefi said. This is problematic because consumer demand often means finished product suppliers want several additions to one product, some of which may not be compatible. Chaudhari noted: “Everybody wants to have the most convenient delivery system, and they want things that are not always possible or that present challenges because of solubility, stability and shelf life.” He used B vitamins as an example. “B1—an energy booster. The problem is, it has an egg odor, it’s not very stable and has an especially neutral pH,” he said. “You can overcome some of these things; but, depending on processing temperature, one has to be careful. If you process at a high temperature to kill bacteria, you’ll lose vitamin B1 because it’s not stable.”

Moshrefi underscored processing and transport considerations in the complex equation: “Ascorbic acid is sensitive to oxidation in the presence of air, heat or light, and certain B vitamins are more stable in an acidic environment while pantothenic and folic acids are more stable in an environment that is slightly alkaline.”

John Foley, technical services manager for human nutrition, BASF, spoke specifically of beverage formulation challenges. “Colloidal and chemical stability are the primary challenges for beverages,” he noted. “The use of fat-soluble antioxidants typically created these types of challenges. For example, beverages in the water and near-water categories are more challenging to fortify than 100-percent juice or dairy-based products since there are typically few ingredients to enhance the stability in these products.”

Solubility can seriously stall beverage fortification progress, according to Max Motyka, director of human products division, Albion Advanced Nutrition. “Certain beverages have pH considerations that can cause solubility problems,” he said. “In some cases we can advise as to ways to buffer the pH to allow the mineral ingredients to stay in a solution.” Either way, much testing is involved, often several rounds of it before companies go ahead with mass producing prototypes.

Udi Alroy, vice president of global marketing and sales, LycoRed, expanded on beverage fortification hang-ups. “Dairy beverages have a lot of cross interaction issues that may affect taste,” he said. “Fruit-based beverages require ingredients that, on one hand, would not influence organoleptic characteristics of the fruit base, and on the other hand would not increase thermodynamic tension in the fruit base.”

What Works Best

Even though finished product companies are beginning to fortify more mainstream foods and beverages, those vitamins and minerals don’t always reach consumers in adequate amounts. After solubility, stability and color-integrity issues have been resolved, bioavailability is the next big hurdle. “Bioavailability is often a concern when the nutrient is poorly soluble in water, or may have a crystalline nature under typical physiological conditions found in the human digestive tract,” Foley said. “Microencapsulated products that reduce the particle size of the water insoluble nutrient or modify the crystalline structure to enhance bioavailability help maximize nutrient absorption.”

Alroy noted LycoRed also employs microencapsulation technology. “LycoRed’s encapsulation technology maintains the level of bioavailability of the vitamins and minerals by ensuring all of the coating materials release the active ingredients in the stomach, before the vitamins and minerals get to the small intestine where they are absorbed, ” he said. Microencapsulation technology also prevents interactions between vitamins, which safeguards any loss of bioavailability. But microencapsulation is only the start of many innovative delivery systems available today.

For example, GTC Nutrition uses its short-chain fructooligosaccharide (scFOS®) prebiotic fiber NutraFlora® to facilitate absorption of its Aquamin™ calcium/magnesium mineral matrix and overcome formulation challenges in varying applications. “When formulating low pH applications, Aquamin Soluble is the best solution if the product is a clear, ready-to-drink (RTD) beverage, while Aquamin S is intended for dairy beverages such as smoothies,” said Cristina Munteanu, food applications specialist, GTC Nutrition. She also noted smaller helper minerals included in the Aquamin matrix make it more bioavailable. In addition, the crystal lattice structure of the product means smooth mouthfeel for finished products. “Aquamin has a porous configuration, allowing the product to complex with fat and water, creating a nonchalky mouthfeel,” Munteanu added.

Other companies begin formulations with the minerals already in a highly bioavailable form. Albion Advanced Nutrition uses patented technology to develop mineral amino acid chelates because they do not oxidize other components of finished products, as non-chelated forms of minerals do. “This is a real plus to food formulators, since oxidation of fats and other components of food can cause shelf life limitations or even complete incompatibilities,” Motyka said. In Albion’s case, the development of this mineral form eliminated subsequent steps for optimizing absorbability. The company also developed Taste-Free™ technology to address fortification causing foul-tasting end products.

Gadot Biochemical also develops inherently bioavailable bases. “Mineral sources we offer are based on organic acids (citrates or gluconates), which were found to be much more bioavailable than inorganic sources (e.g. carbonate),” said Ronny Hacham, vice president, business development and marketing, Gadot. The company also optimizes offerings by relying on ingredient synergies for maximized bioavailability—as with Gadocal K calcium and potassium supplement, TCC-VitD calcium and vitamin D3 supplement, and GadoPhit calcium and phosphorous supplement.

Two products from InterHealth function similarly through ingredient synergies. “SuperCitriMax® is a patented hydroxycitric acid (HCA) compound bound to both calcium and potassium,” Moshrefi said. The other product, ChromeMate®, is a “patented niacinbound, highly bioavailable form of chromium that helps maintain normal body weight, insulin function and healthy blood sugar levels.” By beginning with already bioavailable ingredients, InterHealth eludes unnecessary ingredient additions.

Premixes for Efficiency

The idea of ingredient synergies is the foundation of premix utilization. Premixes are attractive because they save time and money. “The trend toward premixes is already apparent as manufacturers are looking to simplify operation and cut costs,” Alroy said. “Premixes are available in any form and custom made to the batch size and type of food matrix. They ensure the right particle distribution in the end product.”

When finished product manufacturers have a clear idea of what they’ll need from ingredient formulators, buying a premix is an efficient option. Motyka said, “Buying premixes cuts down on the number of lab tests needed to be done in the testing of incoming raw materials, and decreases the need to purchase each component separately.” Tamra Davis, marketing director, TRC Nutritional Labs, noted another positive attribute of premixes. “As [they] become more popular, we are seeing them offered with broader availability of branded blends, which can add value to product marketing,” she said.

Chaudhari looks at premixes in terms of turn around times and product delivery. “Once we know how many vitamins someone needs, we can turn around within one week,” he said. “Information we get from the customer is so crucial. We ask a lot of questions regarding processing conditions.” Hacham added the use of premixes eliminates much testing needed to ascertain compatibility of nutrients because the tediousness of working with substances of varying particle size and homogeneity can be eliminated with premixes.

Foley praised premixes for their obvious advantages in production streamlining. “Using a supplier that can pre-qualify the quality and stability of many of the nutrients needed is a significant benefit,” he said. “Many premix suppliers have a good knowledge of overage recommendations and common ingredient interactions.” However, not every premix solution is without hitches, Foley cautioned. “While premixes offer clear production efficiencies, it may be difficult to isolate any negative effects of a single ingredient when nutrients are bundled together.”

Shelf Life, Overages and QC

Innovative delivery systems can certainly differentiate fortified products in a busy market, but those systems must ensure included vitamins and minerals remain in products for a determined shelf life. “Overages are very common in the supplement industry due to degradation of ingredients in all forms, especially liquids,” Davis said. “In order to meet label claim at the end of shelf life, formulations are tested through long term stability studies to know exactly the correct ingredient mix to maintain claimed potency.”

Foley put some numbers to typically-added vitamins. “Overages range from 15 percent for typical vitamin E (acetate) fortified products to up to 40 percent for vitamin A fortified products,” he said. Many factors, such as water activity, pH, storage temperature and packaging affect overage levels, so thorough communication between suppliers and manufacturers regarding all phases of manufacturing is valuable. Again, delivery systems such as microencapsulation can help companies keep overages low, or avoid them completely.

Chaudhari further noted some federal regulations affect shelf life expectations. “We have to check the stability all throughout the shelf life, and it has to comply with the law,” he said. “Bread and some of the milk products have federal standards, so you have to meet the requirements—the minimum per pound.”

Because of the metamorphic nature of ingredients involved in vitamin and mineral fortification, quality control (QC) is integral to successful products. Foley outlined quality control procedures at BASF: “[We] use multiple measures to ensure the quality and safety of our products: independent quality assurance and regulatory support, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP), allergen control, inspection of incoming materials, auditing of suppliers, microbial specifications, assays of active compounds, heavy metals testing, ISO certifications, external audits and application testing.”

Chaudhari added Fortitech’s QC doesn’t end when a premix leaves the factory. “We do that kind of testing throughout shelf life,” he said. “We check the active component in each mix we supply; also physical stability, nutrient stability and microbiological criteria.”

With manufacturers increasingly asking suppliers to fortify foods new foods, adaptability of new delivery systems and rigorous quality assurance procedures will offer yet more differentiation on the supply side. And evolving consumer tastes will be the barometer for future direction of this important market.