Blue Sky Botanics has announced the launch of its organic baobab fruit purée, a pasteurised, ready-to-use fruit ingredient, which is high in dietary fibre and packed with vitamin C, potassium and calcium. The product is designed for food and beverage brands looking to add fibre, nutrients, taste, texture and mouthfeel to their products. Manufactured on the company’s aseptic production line, the purée is pasteurised and immediately packaged to preserve the nutrients for a longer shelf life.
Baobab fruit powder is nutrient-dense and boasts high dietary fibre content, the company says. Recently published research conducted by Ghent University in Belgium has suggested the fruit's fibre is as powerful a prebiotic as inulin, a well known prebiotic fibre source, but at half the dose. The findings are supported by multiple studies into the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania who consume baobab fruit throughout the year. These studies found members of the tribe have some of the most diverse gut microbiomes on the planet, and researchers have suggested this is because of the high soluble fibre content in their diet.
Baobab fruit occurs naturally as a raw powder, which the company says can be a challenge when it comes to formulation.
“The hydrophobic nature of baobab powder makes blending into liquid formulations on an industrial scale both challenging and time-consuming without specialist mixing equipment. Baobab fruit purée eliminates these challenges as the mechanical forces needed to incorporate the powder smoothly and consistently into a solution have already been applied”, said Caroline Brevitt, MD of Blue Sky Botanics.
“We love the fact that baobab fruit comes as a 100% natural raw powder without needing to be processed or modified. But there are times when a formulation calls for a liquid ingredient and we have had many customers ask if we could supply baobab in this format. The good news is we now have a solution”.
Made from 100% baobab, the purée can be used in various product applications.
“Consumers and product developers are increasingly aware of dietary fibre’s multiple health benefits particularly with the gut microbiome, but most fruit purées fall short in their ability to deliver on fibre content. Our baobab fruit purée contains over 11g/100g of total dietary fiber”, said Daniel Jones, Head of Food and Beverage Division for Blue Sky.
Blue Sky claims the ingredient is fully traceable. It's also available as a FairWild-certified product, indicating the ecological sustainability of the sourcing practices, fair trade pricing and transparent business relationships with rural fruit harvesters in southern Africa.
“Our entire fruit sourcing operation is organically certified, which means we can trace every batch of our fruit right back to the specific area it was harvested from. However, consumers are increasingly demanding proof of sustainability and ethical sourcing. That is why we decided to also become FairWild Certified”, says Gus Le Breton of Baobab Exports Ltd, which supplies the raw material.
