Exploring the World of Premixes

Once upon a time in America, food was grown in nutrient-rich soil and people were forced to eat whole grains and vegetables because there were no other options. Fast-forward to 2009 and food is grown in depleted soil, fast-food joints are on every corner and it’s difficult to for people get all of their nutrients, even if they try. Some look to multivitamins to fill in dietary gaps, but an emerging trend is food and beverages fortified with vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that may be lacking in today’s diet.

Premixes are the primary fortification tool. These blends of different natural ingredients are used to create an additional health benefit that would not normally be in the food or beverage. Almost anything can be fortified with a premix. “Here in the U.S. market, virtually every product category is prime for fortification,” said Ram Chaudhari, Ph.D., FACN, CNS, senior executive vice president and chief scientific officer, Fortitech Inc. “If you look in the supermarket, manufacturers are trying to distinguish themselves from their competition by calling out the various nutrients and health benefits of their products due to fortification.”

Popular items for fortification include staples such as flours, sugar and milk, as well as items like nutrition bars, energy bars, powdered drink mixes, yogurt, margarine, cereal, orange juice and water.

Todd L. Sitkowski, senior marketing manager, DSM Nutritional Products Inc., said the premix market has changed a lot in the past 10 years. He noted, “Premixes have evolved from delivering just standard nutrition such as vitamins and minerals to providing other nutraceutical and functional ingredients to keep up with the ever-changing nutritional demands of consumers.”

Why Outsource a Premix?

With the market for premixes growing, food and beverage manufacturers are looking for ingredient suppliers that can deliver the goods rather than trying to create the fortifications themselves. The main reason they look to premix makers is the cost. “One of my customers has a large poultry operation in California that thought they may want to try to do their own premixing, but once they ascertained the cost of inventory, shrinkage and all the technology that goes into it, they figured out they can put their time, money and expertise somewhere better than trying to make their own premixes,” said Gary Vannorsdel, president, AgD Nutrition.

Outsourcing a premix also reduces the number of vendors a company needs to deal with, which can save a lot of time, according to Vanessa Elizabeth Teter, food technologist, Watson Inc.

Premixes also reduce the number of lab tests needed for individual raw materials. “A pre-mix from a [single] company allows the manufacturer to only have to audit one manufacturing location as opposed to numerous locations of the various individual suppliers,” said Patrick Stano, vice president of sales and marketing North America, Dr. Paul Lohmann Inc.

Premix manufacturers regularly create custom blends that keep for certain customers and allow no one else to know the components. “We have various premixes, all of which are highly unique and formulated specifically to each customer,” said Seltzer Nutritional Technologies' senior product innovation scientist, Holly Petty, Ph.D. “They are kept proprietary for each individual customer.” Teter added, “No two premixes are the same and while there are some enrichment blends that are used as a standard in the bakery industry, most of the premixes on the shelf have all been designed with one product in mind.”

Premixing Problems

Another reason food and beverage manufacturers may want to outsource premixes is to avoid the slew of challenges that come in formulating the fortified mixes. “As the popularity of functional foods and beverages increase, ingredient suppliers are faced with challenges in creating premixes,” said Massood Moshrefi, Ph.D., vice president of operations and technical services, InterHealth Nutraceuticals. “They now need to consider solubility, organoleptics and many other factors for finished products.”

Max R. Motyka, MS, RPh, director of sales and marketing at Albion Human Nutrition, said beverages cause the most challenges related to taste, color, texture and feel. “Certainly, the type of beverage is a big factor, due to the effect of the pH for that beverage and its impact on solubility and appearance of the finished product,” he said. “Fortifying water can be very limited by the color of the additive. You don’t want to turn the water green. It must be crystal clear for the consumer.” However, Teter added, “The easiest beverages to fortify are those that are heavily flavored and very viscous, but the breakthrough beverages on the market are just the opposite.”

Belinda Da Costa Gomez, premix development manager at Pharmline Inc., said beverages are difficult because of the minimum amount of ingredients available to enhance stability. “Consumers are more demanding and want added vitamins and minerals but do not want to alter the taste, while scientist need to consider solubility, stability, longevity, pH, color integrity and the right nutrient source to achieve these goals,” she said.

Teter added, “Many oil soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K have been specially spray dried onto starch matrixes to help with solubility in water-based products. Because most of these products tend to give a slight cloud to a clear beverage, Watson Inc. has gone one step further and developed a clear vitamin E product to meet the demands of the customer.”

Chaudhari noted certain ingredients can pose challenges. “Vitamin C and minerals such as copper and iron, and vitamin A and iron may cause oxidation as well as a lingering metallic after-taste; therefore, selecting the correct form of iron, copper, etc. is extremely important,” he said.

Teter added thiamin, even at relatively low levels, will give most beverages a very bitter flavor and some vitamins, such as riboflavin, have color associated with them and at high concentrations can give water an unappealing color hue. “While sometimes it can be quite difficult to overcome these issues, simple steps can be taken to eliminate these negative effects,” she said. “The easiest is by decreasing the amount of fortification. By changing from 50 percent of the daily value to 5 or 10 percent, flavor off-notes can be decreased and cause the consumer to not detect the additional ingredients.”

Moshrefi agreed vitamins can pose challenges, but added, “New technologies have improved some vitamin stability. For example, stability of vitamins A and D3 can be improved by a crosslinking process such as the reaction between gelatin and the sugar that makes the beadlet insoluble in water. The coating also gives them more stability under higher pressure and temperature during the processing as well as makes them more stable in high humidity environments.”

Formulators must also make sure their blends are homogenous in order for every product to contain the nutrients promised on the label. “The challenge in blending ingredients with different particle sizes is that bulk density and variable particle sizes can lead to segregation,” Chaudhari said. “Therefore, minor nutrients should be diluted with another carrier to get the two different materials to blend well in order to make a homogeneous product.”

Solubility goes along with a homogeneous blend and can create just as many troubles. “Solubility can pose a challenge,” Petty said. “In beverages that are deemed cloudier or that are dairy based, less soluble micronutritionals can be utilized.”

No matter how homogenous and soluble a product is, it won’t help the consumer if the ingredients aren’t absorbed into the body. “Bioavailability of vitamins and minerals is an important issue in fortification of foods and beverages,” said Chaudhari.

Teter posed another possible problem with bioavailability. “The more bioavailable a mineral, typically the more reactive it becomes within the product,” she said. “For example, the most bioavailable form of iron is reduced iron. However, when you incorporate that into a finished good, the iron begins reacting, causing oxidation of the product. This can lead to off flavors that may become unacceptable to the consumer. When this happens, other forms of iron can be used that are not as bioavailable, but work better for the overall shelf life of the product.”

And with all the different ingredients involved, interactions need to be monitored. “When you combine these nutrients in different food matrices, one has to consider interactions between vitamins and minerals,” said Chaudhari. “Once you have interactions, you will have secondary reactions, which will affect bioavailability.”

Petty added, “Formulations must be designed methodically to prevent reactions between the end product formulation and the premix we implement. Overages are also implemented to reduce interactions among nutrients and environmental factors.”

One way to address many of the challenges in premixes is microencapsulation. Stano said, “Many of the mineral salts have solubility issues in beverages, taste issues in either foods or beverages, and potential for interactions in either food or beverages. We help our customers overcome this by offering them products that are microencapsulated, which helps prevent interactions, as well as helping mask the taste.”

Chaudhari noted, “Among the many factors that can contribute to minimizing interactions, a manufacturer can separate vitamins and minerals into two individual premixes, or encapsulate certain vitamins or minerals or utilize a particular form of a specific ingredient.”

Quality Control

With all of the issues involved in processing a premix, food and beverage makers as well as consumers need to be assured premixes are safe. Most premix companies conduct extensive in-house tests to ensure safety. “We test numerous batches of our products to make sure that there are no impurities, such as heavy metals, pesticides, toxins or solvent residues,” Moshrefi said. “We also test to ensure that the active ingredient is present in its proper amount. All of our suppliers and vendors go through an extensive qualification program for approval, and we audit them every year for compliance.” He added InterHealth complies with the regulations for GMPs (good manufacturing practices) for functional dietary ingredients and is an ISO 9001-2000 company.

Tim Wells, director of quality for DSM, said the company also focuses on prevention as one part of its quality control (QC). “This includes comprehensive supplier qualification prior to approving new suppliers or new product,” he said. “Prior to qualification of a new supplier or raw material, QC conducts full testing of the first three lots. The QC process does not end there; all DSM QC facilities monitor supplier performance with on-going full lot testing and skip lot testing as suppliers reach the preferred stats.”

Fortification’s Future

Many in the premix business expect the rising trend of fortified foods to continue. According to Chaudhair, fortified products that are looking good for the future are those that focus on specific health issues such as heart health, anti-aging, gut/digestive health, immunity and cognitive development, as well as products that relate to individual demographic groups like women, men, the elderly and children,. “The market is ever-changing,” he observed. “Every day, advances in technology are enabling us to incorporate nutrients that at one time were problematic (e.g., omega-3s, superfruit extracts, botanicals and other herbal extracts), and we are seeing more requests for premixes that target specific health conditions. And a strong newcomer is in the area of nutricosmetics. The whole ‘beauty from within’ concept is really gaining speed and we are seeing requests for applications in this area ranging from bars to confections to beverages.”

Industry members shared their thoughts on the future as well. Gomez said energy drinks are the next biggest trend, Petty said the market will soon have more therapeutic beverage and gummies, while Motyka said Albion is seeing more novel product applications, including ice cream and even soy sauce.

Whatever the new ingredient or end product, premixes will need to have solid science and show a proven benefit to the consumer. “More finished product manufacturers realize premix fortification is the answer to their needs,” said Gomez. “Traditional vitamin, mineral and protein ingredients have changed; the actual market today has big demand for nontraditional functional premixes, from probiotics to memory enhancements. Specialty ingredients are in and, under the current circumstances, need to be well documented and based on solid science. It is the new era for premix technology.”