Ingredient Round Up: April 2023

Knwble Grwn is a new portfolio of plant-based food ingredients that are sustainably sourced. They’re produced by small or underrepresented farmers -- such as veterans, Indigenous Americans and other minorities -- using regenerative agricultural practices that help to protect the environment. Practices include: minimizing soil disturbance, improving soil structure and quality, continuously covering bare soil, maximizing biodiversity and responsibly managing inputs, including nutrients and pesticides. ADM

Boost for chocolate

Boostract is a flavor enhancer especially developed for chocolate ready-to-drink or ready-to-mix protein beverages. It boosts the chocolate flavor, helps deliver a premium taste profile, improves mouthfeel, masks protein notes, reduces bitterness, creates a lingering taste and can increase sweeteness — and generally fulfills consumers’ guilty pleasure expectations that come with chocolate. T. Hasegawa USA 

Lactoferrin via fermentation

Lactoferrin is naturally found in cow’s milk but the low concentrations and current resource-intensive extraction processes limit access and drive up the cost. This vendor uses precision fermentation to produced lactoferrin — LF+ — a high-value bioactive milk protein and one of the most powerful parts of cow’s milk, with great functional benefits for immunity, iron regulation, and digestive health. The vendor claims it’s the world’s first precision fermentation-produced lactoferrin, now making the ingredient available for more applications, such as sports nutrition, where the protein’s iron-regulating benefits can improve physical performance, aiding endurance, fatigue resistance, muscle strength, and energetic efficiency. Turtle Tree

Honey: The natural sweetener

From the flower, to the beehive, to consumers, honey is an all-natural sweetener that consumers value and trust. It’s also a natural source of a wide array of nutrients, including trace amounts of seven vitamins, 11 minerals, five antioxidants and 17 amino acids. A familiar flavor that everyone loves. National Honey Board