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Why Use Fruit Powders?

Kanegrade manufactures and supplies a range of spray-dried fruit powders. They are versatile, natural ingredients that allow you to incorporate aroma, nutrients, subtle colour and bulking into a wide range of food products.

Spray-drying is a gentle, relatively low impact, continuous process to turn a liquid feed, in this case fruit juice concentrates or purees, into a free-flowing powder. The resultant powders have a long shelf life, are easy to use in production and are highly consistent.

Portfolio

Kanegrade has a range of 15 different fruit powders as follows:

Apple powder

Banana powder

Blackcurrant powder

Cherry powder

Cranberry powder

Lemon powder

Lime powder

Mango powder

Orange powder

Peach powder

Pineapple powder

Pomegranate powder

Raspberry powder

Strawberry powder

Tamarind powder

Always in stock

  • These are always in stock, and packed in 20Kg or 25Kg packs.
  • Samples are readily available and we are happy to send you the quantity required.
  • These are used in many applications including:  Powder Beverages, Supplements, Sports Nutrition, Smoothies, Sauces, Desserts, Snack Mixes / Seasonings, Fillings.
  • They are effective in many other applications too and have been used successfully in applications as unusual as bath bombs, candy floss, coffee and rice cakes.

Manufacture Process

The spray-drying process involves a liquid feed being pumped into a nozzle (known as an atomiser) which sprays the feed into a large chamber with hot air.

This rapidly evaporates the water from the droplets, leaving the solids, which are swept out of the chamber in a flow of hot air. This enters an adjacent cyclone where the finished powder drops into a collector as the air rushes out of the top. The powder is then sieved, metal-detected and bagged ready for use.

Various parameters are controlled including the inlet air temperatures, feed pump speed, and airflow which all impact the final powder, as well as the efficiency of the drying.

Spray-drying is an efficient and very long-established continuous process for drying, and remains the gold standard for producing powders from a liquid feed. It is the same process used to create powder flavours.

Let us know if you have further questions about the manufacturing process.

Spray-dried vs other powders

While we produce spray-dried fruit powders there are other techniques used to create powders from fruit.

See our table below to compare the different techniques, each of which has distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Process Description Cost Energy use per KG Heat impact on raw material Carrier Needed for fruit powder Continuous / Batch Shelf life
Spray-dried Liquid feed pumped and sprayed through a fine nozzle into chamber of hot air, water evaporates and powder collected. Low Low Medium Yes Continuous Excellent
Vacuum Belt-Dried Liquid feed thickened and put into a roller which passes continuously through a heated vacuum chamber evaporating water, then macerated. Low Medium Low No / Sometimes Continuous Good
Roller-dried Liquid feed thickened and fed onto a hot roller. Outputs sheets of dried material which are then macerated into a powder. Medium Medium Low Yes Continuous Good
Freeze-dried Liquid put into trays in a vessel which is frozen at high pressure, liquid sublimates out, resultant material is macerated into powder. Very high Very high None No / Sometimes Batch Poor (Prone to lumping / caking without carrier / anti-caking agent)

We believe that spray-dried fruit powders gives the best balance when considering all of the above factors.

Technical

Spray-dried powders allow for a concentrated powder when compared by weight to the fresh fruit or the fruit juice / puree. This results in an industrial ratio which can demonstrate the fruit content being many several times higher in a fruit powder on a per KG basis despite the inclusion of a carrier.

  • Fruit solids: Each powder has slightly different fruit solids content due to the individual characteristics of the fruits, but ours have class-leading levels of fruit content when compared to other suppliers.
    Nutritional: Nutrients are passed from the fruit into the powders and we conduct Group 2 Nutritional analyses for all our fruit powders.
  • Microbiological: Moisture levels are low typically below 5.5% meaning the powders are highly shelf stable, with very low water activity and negligible microbiological risk.
  • Other ingredients: Our spray-dried powders contain no anti-caking agents or other preservatives which are often included in powders produced using other techniques.
  • Raw Materials: We source fruit raw materials from leading juice producers around the world. All carriers are subject to extensive testing for heavy metals, pesticides, microbiological levels, ethylene oxide (EtO) as well as their standard chemical parameters before use in our fruit powders.
  • Carrier: We are often asked why there has to be a carrier in spray-dried powders, why can’t there be simply pure fruit. The answer is that if you tried to spray-dry the fruit juice concentrate / puree, the sugar content when heated would be so sticky that it would block the nozzles in the spray-drier, making manufacture impossible. Further even if it could be made, the resultant material would be so sticky that it would not result in a free-flowing powder. We try to maximise the fruit content, and therefore minimise the carrier content in all of our fruit powders.

Our powders all use maltodextrin as the carrier, which is a slightly sweet, neutral, food-safe powder used widely in the food industry, normally made from corn / maize. This is the industry standard carrier for spray-dried powders, proven safe both by food safety boards across the world including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) as well as through decades of use in the food industry. We use only non-GMO sourced maltodextrin and IP certificates can be provided if needed.

Let us know if you have any other technical questions about our fruit powders. We’ll be happy to help.

Legislation

Our spray-dried fruit powders are considered ingredients and subject to General Food Law, 178/2002.

We have full traceability for batches right back to the raw materials. Traceability is tested frequently, and our fruit powders are processed within the scope of our BRCGS Food certification to our formulation.

Labelling

Our spray-dried fruit powders can be labelled, for example:

  • Cherry Powder
  • Cherry Powder (Maltodextrin, Cherry Juice)
  • Natural Cherry Flavouring

If you have any further questions about how to label our fruit powders, please get in touch with our regulatory department.

Documentation

With any fruit powder sample or order, we provide all the documentation to use the product safely in your final food product. We provide as standard:

  • Product specification
  • Allergen Information
  • Nutritional Information
  • *And with orders a Certificate of Analysis.

Religious certifications and SDS are also available if needed. Get in touch to let us know your requirements.

Enquire

If you’re ready to request information or a product sample from us, our fruit powder experts look forward to hearing about your project.

You can phone us, schedule a phone or video call or send us an email.

Contact: Wendy Sollis
Technical Sales (Fruit Powders)
wendy@kanegrade.com