Dr. Kerry Ringer, a plant biochemist, will present her
study on the retention of Vitamin C content of strawberry
powder produced by different drying methods at the 2011
International Berry Health Benefits Symposium in Westlake
Village, Calif., on June 27-29.
Dr. Kerry Ringer, Chief Science Officer
With more research being conducted on the health benefits
of berries and the compounds within berries, there is an
increasing demand for high-quality nutraceutical, nutritional
supplement, and food ingredients in the form of berry
powders. The majority of fruit and berry powders on the
market either contain a high amount of additives such as
maltodextrin (40-80%) to aid in drying high sugar materials
or are reduced in nutrient and sensory quality due to the long
drying times and high drying temperatures. Production of a
high quality, value-added berry powder with no additives and
all of the nutritional content of the whole berry increases the
healthful aspects of products purchased by consumers.
In this study, she and her colleagues used two drying methods
known as having the potential to retain nutritional content to
dry puree made from Pacific Northwest grown strawberries.
Their goal was to retain as much of the Vitamin C content and
antioxidants (phenolic compounds) as well as the color of the
dried powder as compared to the fresh strawberry puree. The
two drying methods used were RZD™ drying, which has been
shown to retain 100% of antioxidants in blueberry, and freezedrying, the quality benchmark in drying. The results showed
that RZD drying retained more of the Vitamin C and phenolics
and is an excellent alternative to freeze-drying. Additionally,
the powder retained the vibrant red color and flavor of the
original puree, which was not true for the freeze-dried version.
More about the study can be found at www.powderpure.com.