Fiberstar Announces Winners of the Citri-Fi® 125 Citrus Fiber Student Innovation Contest Supporting the Food and Beverage Industry
River Falls, Wisconsin (PRWEB) March 02, 2017 -- Fiberstar, Inc. (http://www.FiberstarIngredients.com), a global market leader in clean label food ingredient solutions for the food and beverage industry announced the winners to the Citri-Fi 125 Student Innovation Contest. Citri-Fi 125, a natural, non-GMO citrus fiber is one of the most recent additions to the Citri-Fi portfolio. To find new uses for this natural citrus fiber, Fiberstar launched a global innovation contest targeting University students. Over 25 applicants, globally, submitted a proposal in how to use the Citri-Fi 125.
“This is the first time a program like this has been created, so we are pleased with the interest from the applicants,” says Fiberstar, Inc. President and CEO, John Haen. “We continue to support University food science programs by offering students opportunities to create food ingredient solutions for the real world.”
A panel of judges ranked the students’ applications based on originality of concept, justification/market need, ingredient commercial feasibility, technical feasibility and quality of their report. A total of $25,000 was awarded amongst the six winning proposals. The following winning teams and applications are:
1st Place: Citrus Fiber as an Effective Fat Blocker in Fried Seafood: Oregon State University Seafood Research and Education Center, U.S. (Dr. Jae Park, Kaitlin Junes and Angela Hunt). Citri-Fi 125 used in a coating formulation to reduce oil pick-up not only provides potential cost savings to processors due to reduced oil usage, but this also provides manufacturers opportunities to reduce fat and calories. The study also showed yield improvement due to increased pick-up and reduced cooking losses.
2nd Place: Reduced Fat Instant Laksa Paste: Surya University, Indonesia (Sylviana, Meutia Wafa' Khairunnisa Hakim, Amelia Adinda and Bryan Raharja). Citri-Fi 125 is used to reduce the amount of coconut milk used in Laksa paste to provide potential cost savings and fat reduction. Citri-Fi 125 provides emulsification stabilization and improved mouthfeel to simulate the texture of the full-fat version. This may be applicable to other coconut milks pastes, spreads, beverages and soups found not only in Asia, but also in other parts of the world due to the growing use of coconut.
3rd Place: Citri-Crunch Healthy Savory Extruded Pork Snack: Washington State University, U.S. (Ryan Kowalski, Bon-Jae Gu, Maria Dian Pratiwi Masli, Siyuan Wang and Hongchao Zhang). Citri-Fi 125 helped reduce the oil uptake and improved the flavor by enhancing the umami flavor of monosodium glutamate when reducing the sodium. This not only aligns with the market’s need for healthier snacks, but also offers snack manufacturers cost savings opportunities in less oil usage.
4th Place: Chicken Sausage with Reduced Oil & Improved Sensory: University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka (Miss A.M. Aruni Shanika, Dr. Himali Samaraweera, Nirupa Edirisinghe, Hashinee Medika Ariyasena and Nuwan Jayawardena). Citri-Fi 125 provided emulsification stabilization and texturizing to help reduce the oil by at least 30% while maintaining a full-fat mouthfeel. This provides cost savings and health benefits due to the fat/caloric reduction.
5th Place: Calcium Fortification to Increase Viscosity and Enhance Gelling Properties: University of Guelph, Canada (Lisa Indris). Incorporating calcium with Citri-Fi 125 in liquid food formats improves the viscosity and provides improved stabilization. This enhanced feature opens doors in the natural dairy category where stabilization and mouthfeel are desired and needed.
6th Place: Natural Color Stabilizer in Berry Yammee Topping: Cornell University, U.S. (Fiona Harnischfeger, Sofía Lara, Victoria Chen, Katrina Cariño, Ana Chang, Sierra Jamir and Shiyu Cai). Citri-Fi 125 stabilizes natural colors during shelf-life to prevent phase separation and color bleeding. This benefit is crucial for consumer acceptance when using vibrant natural colors to indicate freshness.
Fiberstar also offers other citrus fiber solutions via 100 series line which contains different fiber content than the 125 series, the 200 series which is citrus fiber and guar gum and the 300 series which is the citrus fiber and xanthan gum. The Citri-Fi citrus fiber product lines provide food manufacturers clean label texturizing solutions for various food products including bakery, beverages, dressings, meats, sauces and dairy.
“We are excited to enhance our formulating tool box by promoting Citri-Fi 125 citrus fiber. Our team will continue working closely with our Customers to provide superior technical service support, quality product and new ideas especially those generated from the most recent innovation contest. And we look forward to connecting with Universities and students in the future to continue the collaboration.”
For more information about the Innovation Contest applications, please contact Dr. Brock Lundberg at (651) 271-0328
Dr. Brock Lundberg, Ph.D., Fiberstar Inc, http://www.fiberstar.net, +1 (651) 271-0328, [email protected]
Share this article