Bartek Ingredients’ new ingredient improves sour flavor profiles in gummies, beverages: IFT FIRST 2023 Preview

Photo from Bartek Ingredients Inc.

Bartek Ingredients Inc. (Stoney Creek, ON, Canada), a supplier of malic and food-grade fumaric acid, will showcase its new ingredient, Uplift, which helps improve sour flavor profiles, at the 2023 IFT FIRST Food Expo taking place in Chicago on July 16-19, 2023. At booth #S2321, the company will provide samples of Uplift in a peach-flavored ice tea beverage and gummies. The company says Uplift creates “a juicy and authentic fruit flavor profile while precisely controlling sour onset, linger, and peak.”

“Today’s consumers look for juicy, tart, and balanced new beverage and confectionery products that they not only enjoy but that they are excited to share with their friends and followers. Uplift Taste Modification Technology is Bartek’s newest ingredient line that offers formulators new tools to enhance flavor, boost sour, and more easily manage system pH (acidity) in gummies, beverages, and more,” the company’s press release states.

Formulators working with confectioneries can be challenged to find an appropriate buffer to optimize pH, the firm adds. “Inversion presents a significant obstacle, as it has the potential to disturb a product’s overall structure,” explained Michelle Frame, president of Victus Ars (Chicago), the food development lab that Bartek has been working with on applications for Uplift. “The challenge lies in crafting a confection that boasts a lively, tangy flavor without compromising its stability, which often leads to a less-than-satisfactory taste experience. Bartek’s Uplift line distinguishes itself by its remarkable capacity to enhance and extend the delightful amalgamation of juicy and tart notes while exerting minimal influence on pH.”