A Match Made in Alginate Heaven
Announcing our strategic partnership with Socius Ingredients to bring sustainable alginates to the US food market
Over the last few decades, consumers have demanded tastier foods but also healthier, low fat options. They have also become much more weary of non-natural chemical ingredients being used in food for emulsification and as fillers.
Food companies have responded with new products (and reformulations of old favorites!) with cleaner labels. This creates a never ending challenge for food scientists to use healthier and more sustainable ingredients to meet these new consumer preferences.
The Icing Challenge
Consider an example: the icing on many baked goods (e.g. donuts, cookies etc) is often made using gelatin, an ingredient commonly derived from animal-based collagen. Food companies use gelatin because it very effectively thickens and structures the icing which remains stable during the baking process.
Consumers have recently become less enthusiastic about gelatin. Replacing it, however, is not easy as there are few food ingredients which give you that perfect texture and mouth feel as well as the heat-stability you need to back the perfect donut. Enter alginate.
What is alginate?
Brown seaweed is packed full of different types of carbohydrates (see here, an example from Alaska). There are complex polysaccharides like fucoidan and laminarin as well as mannitol, a simple sugar alcohol. But the majority of the carbohydrates are alginate (a biopolymer uniquely found in brown seaweed) and cellulose (the most common structural building block in plants).
Alginate was first discovered back in the 1880s by E.C.C. Stanford, a British chemist. Continued research showed that alginate is in fact a linear co-polymer made up of repeating blocks of mannuronic and guluronic acid, the so-called “M/G blocks”. The M/G ratio varies from species to species to create a wide range of functional properties such as viscosity, gel strength, and thermal stability.
Food scientists have long used alginate and other hydrocolloids to create high-performance texture blends for food. Its ability to thicken and gel, as well as maintaining stability during heat / thaw cycles, means that it can be used in a wide range of food products - everything from ice cream to sauces to bakery cream fillings and beyond.
Learn more about alginates from Colin Hepburn, CTO of Macro Oceans
Hello, MacroFormTM Alginates
But not all alginates are made the same. Depending on the species and processing method, alginates can come in a range of different viscosities and gel strengths/structures - each behaving slightly differently depending on the applications.
At Macro Oceans we’ve pioneered the next generation of alginate processing technology to deliver high-quality alginates with a range of visco-elastic structures. Our zero-waste biorefinery also sets a new standard for sustainable manufacturing.
Today we’re proud to announce a unique offering - MacroFormTM Alginates - which reflects our enduring commitment to high-performance ingredients without compromising on sustainability.
Our Go-to-Market Partnership
Back to the icing on the donut. Having a great alginate is not enough. To create a truly great icing you need deep knowledge of alginate and deep expertise in making food textures.
Today we’re thrilled to announce an exciting new strategic partnership with Socius Ingredients to bring sustainable alginates to US food manufacturers. Macro Oceans’ deep expertise in sustainable alginate production combined with Socius Ingredients’ track-record in delivering high-performance solutions to food customers is the perfect combination of breakthrough science and real-world food texture solutions.
So, if you are a food manufacturer looking to build clean-label textures, derisk your supply chain, and maintain healthy margins, then we’d love to hear from you. And if you’re just alginate curious, then please reach out!