Hydrocolloid competencies

Danisco's comprehensive hydrocolloids product range comprises

• pectins
• carrageenans
• alginates
• locust bean gums
• guar gums 
• xanthans

The ingredients are used in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and health care industries worldwide, and technical assistance is offered through a network of experts in Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

Expertise

Danisco entered the textural ingredients business in the 1940s with gelatine and locust bean gum in blends.

The acquisition of a pectin factory in Mexico in 1981 marked the beginning of a concerted effort within textural ingredients. Since then great expertise has been accumulated by Development Textural Ingredients (DTI), which now aims at becoming the leading expertise centre in hydrocolloid application and process technology.

The main tasks in the laboratory are:

• chemical and functional characterisation
• product, application and process development and optimisation 
• development of test and standardisation methods (quality control)
• plant and production expansion support
• de-bottlenecking and troubleshooting

Skills

DTI currently has 24 employees of different nationalities such as Danish, French, British, Dutch and Croatian. The employees' educational backgrounds range from lab technicians to chemical and process engineers.

In order to enhance focus, DTI is organised in five specialised groups

• pectin/alginate development 
• carrageenan/functional systems development
• xanthan/guar development
• functional analysis
• process technology

Science

We develop textural ingredients with controlled and defined functionalities based on natural raw materials such as:

• seaweed
• citrus fruits
• carob seeds
• guar seeds

Our specific strengths are:

• functional analyses, for example rheology, texture analysis, gelling and viscosifying properties, pH, temperature, shear, ions and hydrocolloid interaction
• enzymatic characterisation, for example DE distribution, block structure, enzymatic fingerprinting
• bench scale production and testing

Drawing on analytical expertise from other departments we also provide hydrocolloid structure elucidation by use of capillary electrophoresis, HPLC, GC-MS and NMR.

We ensure a constant influx of state-of-the-art knowledge and create an environment of frontier development through: 

• continuous supplementary education
• participation in conferences and symposiums 
• close cooperation with technical universities worldwide