On July 15-17, 2024, IFT First Food Technology Exhibition was successfully held in Chicago, USA, with the theme of “Collaboration + Innovation: How Can Food Science and Technology Change the Food System?” .
2024IFT, what are the new raw materials and trend opportunities worth paying attention to?
As the main B2B exhibition for the global food industry, this year’s IFT attracted more than 17,000 food-related participants for the First time, according to official incomplete statistics.
From the perspective of new raw materials, new products and new technologies launched at the IFT First exhibition in 2024, plant protein, sugar reduction, energy drinks, artificial intelligence and other hot directions this year.
Here’s a look at the hot trends that Geti Bridge helped you gain insight into.
The functional beverage market is growing rapidly
For consumers in Europe and the United States, the market heat of beverages with added health elements has been increasing in the past two years, including probiotics, plant proteins, herbal raw materials, vitamins and minerals.
According to data for 2024 released by SPINS at the show, the beverage industry is undergoing a new transformation, driven by changing consumer preferences and innovative product offerings.
The market for emotional health drinks grew by 32.6%, followed by digestive health (28.3%), cold and flu (22.6%), energy supplement (9.4%), cognitive health (7.4%), etc., for the last 52 weeks ending March 24, 2024.
At the exhibition, it can also clearly felt that the new raw materials launched by raw materials manufacturers are targeting these health directions.
L-theanine:
A new tea extract raw material introduced at the exhibition, which has a L-theanine content of up to 98% and used in the food and beverage product category.
L-theanine is a non-protein amino acid derivative, and the content of L-theanine from green tea is relatively low.
Through water extraction and green technology, the company is able to increase the L-theanine content of tea to 40 percent, or even 98 percent.
Showcases water-soluble plant extracts used in cinnamon, ginger, green coffee beans, pomegranate and turmeric flavored drinks.
Rhodiola rosea extract:
Rhodiola rosea extract Rhodiolife launched at the exhibition, the main ingredients include rosin, rosin and rhodiola rosea, etc., the raw material is water-soluble form, can used in many types of beverage formulations, and the color, flavor and active ingredients have shelf stability.
Citicoline:
As consumer demand for cognitive and immune-related products continues to increase, GSH Bio-Tech is introducing new solutions for its core ingredient Cognizin Citicoline at the show, including new product formats such as chocolate, confectionery and beverages.
The raw material is a stable ingredient that is not easy to change color or taste, and can be used in multiple categories of food and beverage.
Citicoline is a substance that is produced in the body and has major applications in cognitive and brain health, and there is already scientific research data on it.
The sugar market is still hot
Want to enter the US market, sugar reduction is an inextrable topic, from this year’s exhibition, sugar reduction, sugar replacement is still the “focus” of the food and beverage industry.
At the exhibition, the aloxone and corn fiber complex introduced, which can achieve sugar reduction while meeting the needs of the product taste.
The application of aloxone and corn fiber complex in ice cream can achieve a smooth texture, and can used in bakery products, beverages and other categories to provide intestinal health benefits.
Among the many sugar substitute raw materials, D-alorulose has the advantage of being more obvious, its sweetness and taste are quite close to sucrose, but its heat is lower than sucrose.
D-aloxone has a relevant regulatory identity in the global mainstream market, and it has accepted as a new food raw material in China for many times, and it believed that it will usher in “normalization” in the future.
In addition to conventional sugar substitute raw materials, the “technical” dimension of sugar reduction is also one of the trends.
At the show, it introduced a new blended Sugar reduction solution “BI Sugar” that optimizes sweetness, reduces calories and reduces application costs for products such as beverages, baked goods, confectionery, dairy products and dietary supplements.
Unlike simple sweetener blends, the feedstock uses a unique, patented embedding process that combines high-efficiency sweeteners such as stevia and monk fruit with wall material (i.e., sucrose), and the blend also contains L-arabinose, which inhibits enzymes that break sugar down into glucose and fructose.
This process means that the ingredients in BI-Sugar can work synergistically to bring about a balanced sweet taste.
By embedding, components of different bulk densities also do not separate or precipitate during storage, transport or mechanical handling.
New technologies to drive iterations in the food industry
The raw material solution has changed from the early price to the stability, technology and innovation.
DuraLipo™ liposome technology, which uses phospholipid bilayer to make it more efficiently absorbed and utilized in the human body, introduced at the show.
At the same time, it also launched two new products of liposome vitamin C and liposome iron, which meet the principles of plant origin, non-GMO, non-allergy, etc., with good shelf stability, suitable for a variety of application scenarios.
At the same time, the innovative technical solution “eutectic technology” and related product solutions introduced at the exhibition, including eutectic reduced coenzyme Q10 (CrystalQH®), CrysVital™ lutein, CrysVital™ curcumin, CrysVital™ rutin, etc.
Eutectic technology can improve the solubility, stability and bioavailability of raw materials without changing the molecular structure.
In contrast, the advantage of eutectic technology is that it is cost-effective, suitable for large-scale production supply, and is not limited by process amplification.
In addition to technological innovation at the raw material end, artificial intelligence technology is also the hot direction of the exhibition.
Brief summary
From this year’s exhibition, the new raw materials basically concentrated in the direction of sugar reduction, plant-based, alternative raw materials, especially the trend of upgrading and recycling raw materials more obvious, new products are more focused on the direction of ordinary food, beverages, alcohol, around sugar reduction, flavor optimization and other issues, the new nutrition and health direction not particularly many.
Technological innovation solutions this year is more “bright”, compared with the exhibition in 2023, this year’s IFT First food technology exhibition, the presentation of new technological solutions and topic discussion is relatively obvious, including bioavailability technology, artificial intelligence technology, cell culture technology.