Welch’s Brand Brings Grape Ingredients to Market

Grape juice giant Welch’s is entering new territory in the ingredients realm. Taura Natural Ingredients (Winchester, VA), which produces fruit pieces, flakes, and pastes for manufacturers to use in bakery, nutrition bar, and other food items, will now produce concentrated pieces and pastes from Welch’s Concord grape juice.

Manufacturers will now be able to feature these Welch’s-based products in their own finished foods. “Welch’s mission is to bring the great taste of the Concord grape to more places and to more people,” said Wayne Lutomski, Welch’s vice president, international and global ingredients, in a press announcement. “Through our partnership with Taura Natural Ingredients and its unique URC process, we will able to take Concord grapes into applications never before imagined”-including chocolates or combinations with ancient grains in breakfast cereals.

Taura’s patented URC process quickly removes water from fruits, which helps limit water activity and moisture transfer in finished products, extending performance and shelf life. This is especially key for dry goods like bakery, cereal, and snack items, in which additional moisture can be detrimental.

According to Taura, its URC technology concentrates fruit purees and blends to below 10% moisture content in less than 60 seconds. “However, it is not the absolute moisture content that decides whether ingredients can be used successfully in tricky applications,” the company further explains on its website. “The crucial parameter is water activity, which is a measure of the ability of water to migrate from a given ingredient into the surrounding food matrix.” URC sidesteps this problem, it says.

Taura adds that the Concord grape is typically a challenging fruit to work with in the inclusion process, attributing the difficulty to the grape’s “slip skin and large seeds."

Welch’s and Taura Natural Ingredients will both market the Welch’s inclusion and paste line, now branded as FruitWorx. Initial rollout is in North America, Japan, and South Korea, with plans for expansion.

Manufacturers will also appreciate the name recognition the Welch’s brand brings. “Food manufacturers can leverage this brand equity by using FruitWorx inclusions in their own products,” said Richard Croad, COO and president of Taura North America.

Jennifer Grebow
Editor-in-Chief
Nutritional Outlook magazine
jennifer.grebow@ubm.com

Photo courtesy of Welch's