SBIR Phase II: Enhancing Stability of Natural Ingredients in Food and Beverages

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是显着改善不稳定的天然食品成分的保质期，并在食品和饮料行业感兴趣的大量产品组合中用天然色素取代人工色素。消费者对食品中全天然成分的需求增加了数倍，主要是由于健康问题。尽管消费者需求强劲，但天然食用色素的输送和稳定性对食品和饮料行业构成了巨大挑战。这一挑战是由于天然成分固有的化学不稳定性以及它们在食品加工和储存过程中的加速降解。但是目前的解决方案不具有成本效益，并且需要使用消费者不希望的合成添加剂和防腐剂。该项目旨在提供一系列低成本、稳定的天然成分，以提高成品在食品加工和储存过程中的整体稳定性。SBIR第二阶段项目旨在开发生物基封装解决方案，以改善食品和饮料产品中的天然食品颜色和植物化学稳定性。目前的解决方案是次优的，在食品和饮料产品上提供有限的pH（颜色）、热或氧化稳定性和短的有效期。为了解决这一未满足的需求，该项目旨在开发天然色素和生物活性物质的封装，以提高成品食品的整体稳定性。这将通过该项目的主要目标来实现：选择和筛选要封装的载体和天然成分，封装成分的物理化学稳定性测试，放大方法，成品食品/饮料产品的稳定性测试，消费者评估和配方的客户验证。作为所提出的方法的结果，将提供允许食品和饮料工业用天然着色剂代替人工着色剂以及显著延长其期望的食品的保质期的解决方案。这也将有利于在他/她消费的东西中寻求天然健康促进成分的消费者。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will be to enable significant improvement in the shelf-life of unstable natural food ingredients and enable replacing artificial with natural colors in a large portfolio of products of interest to the food and beverage industries. Consumer demand for all-natural ingredients in food has increased multifold, primarily due to health concerns. Despite the strong consumer demand, delivery and stability of natural food colors pose a great challenge for the food and beverage industry. This challenge results due to an inherent chemical instability of natural ingredients and due to their accelerated degradation during food processing and storage. But the current solutions are not cost-effective and require the use of synthetic additives and preservatives, which are not desired by the consumers. This project is aimed at providing an array of low-cost, stable natural ingredients that will improve the overall stability of the finished products both during food processing and storage. This will also address the unmet societal needs for healthy food ingredients and improving sustainability of food products.This SBIR Phase II project aims to develop bio-based encapsulation solutions to improve natural food color and phytochemical stability in food and beverage products. Current solutions are sub-optimal providing limited pH (color), heat or oxidative stability and short expiration dates on food and beverage products. To address this unmet need, this project aims to develop encapsulation of natural colors and bioactives that will enhance the overall stability of a finished food product. This will be achieved by working on the primary objectives of this project: Selection and screening of the carriers and natural ingredients to be encapsulated, physico-chemical stability testing of the encapsulated ingredients, scale-up methodologies, stability testing in a finished food/beverage product, consumer evaluation and customer validation of the formulations. As a result of the proposed approach, solutions will be provided that will allow the food and beverage industry to replace artificial with natural colorants as well as significantly extend shelf-life of their desired food products. This will also benefit the consumer who is seeking natural health-promoting ingredients in what he/she consumes.