Tate & Lyle invests in Europe’s first polydextrose plant

Tate & Lyle has announced a multi-million euro investment in Europe’s first production plant for the speciality carbohydrate polydextrose.

The plant, which will start supplying customers in 2010, will be based at the firm’s Koog food ingredients facility in the Netherlands. It will target manufacturers of everything from yoghurts to baked goods, chewing gum, salad dressings and fruit spreads.

Made from corn syrup, polydextrose has been around for more than 25 years. But new research is being done all the time to boost its credentials as an ingredient with multiple health benefits as well as interesting technical properties.

While its status as a fibre has been disputed in some markets, polydextrose has the structural and physiological properties of fibre, and is also claimed to have prebiotic and satiating effects.

These benefits combined with its low calorie status (polydextrose has1kcal/g vs sugar at 4cal/g), non-cariogenic and low-GI (glycaemic index) credentials, make it a potentially very attractive ingredient for manufacturers looking to reformulate products and make low calorie and no added sugar claims, argued Caroline Sanders, marketing director at Tate & Lyle’s Food & Industrial Ingredients Europe division.

She added: “I think the key benefit of polydextrose over some other rival products is its acid stability, which means you can use it in juices, dairy products such as yoghurts and fruit preparations and it will remain stable throughout its shelf-life. It’s also becoming more popular in bakery as it has good bulking properties.”

Unlike polyols such as maltitol, xylitol, sorbitol, which are used to replace sugar, polydextrose is not sweet and can add texture without adding sweetness, she said.

Although there has been debate over whether some speciality carbohydrates meet the criteria laid out in the new EU definition of dietary fibre (as laid out in a recent amendment to Directive 90/496/EEC on Nutrition Labelling of Foodstuffs), Tate & Lyle was confident that polydextrose was legally a fibre, said Sanders.

Under the new definition, which harmonises EU rules on fibre for the first time, it is defined as carbohydrate components in foods that are non-digestible in the small intestine, but which also have beneficial physiological effects supported by “generally accepted science”

As for its broader regulatory status, polydextrose is approved for use as a food additive in most food and beverage categories, but must be labelled as “polydextrose” or “E1200”.

Tate & Lyle’s major competitor for polydextrose is Danisco, which currently produces its ‘Litesse’ branded polydextrose in the US. While Tate & Lyle was not proposing to significantly undercut Danisco on price, it would be able to offer manufacturers broader solutions to reformulation issues, said Sanders. “We can offer packages that include nice combinations of polydextrose and [Tate & Lyle’s high intensity sweetener] Splenda sucralose, for example.”

According to European food trade organisation the CIAA, applications have been made to make several different health claims about polydextrose under article 13 of the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation. These included: “polydextrose promotes good intestinal health”, “polydextose improves bowel function and gut comfort”, and “polydextrose stimulates the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gut”