03.01.02
Braes Group: Marrying Palatability With Functionality
With a mission to create a world class natural functional ingredient business with definite health/wellness implications, the Braes Group, London, U.K., has hit the ground running with acquisitions and new product development initiatives to support this goal.
The company is slightly over two years old, having been formed in 1999. Current member companies of the group include Obipektin AG (based in Switzerland), Britannia Natural Products Ltd. (based in the U.K.) and Overseal Natural Ingredients (also based in the U.K.). The company plans to build a £200-300 million sales company over the next five years, according to company CEO Nigel Garrow. “Our aim is to become the premier provider of natural functional food ingredients, delivered as user friendly flavor systems, for the food and beverage industries, as well as a powerhouse of innovative solutions,” he said. Product lines include natural colors, dehydrated fruits and vegetable powders and pectins used as natural texture enhancers. The company’s tagline is, “Nature likes Braes.”
Speaking of nature, a key to the company’s success is its gentle processing methods, which mimic nature as closely as possible, explained James Albrecht, senior technical advisor. “We are working to process our ingredients maintaining the highest nutrient functionality possible,” he said. “At our Swiss plant, we have a drying tower that is 73 meters tall and 16 meters in diameter. The whole idea is to produce spray dried materials that are processed with minimum heat. Using ambient temperature creates globules rather than flakes,” he explained. “This preserves the color, flavors and nutrients of the fruits and vegetables and also precludes the addition of anti-caking agents, which are becoming an issue in Europe. These are 100% natural products,” he stated. The Braes Group also has conventional drying capabilities and can dehydrate under many different conditions.
Also under the Braes umbrella is a line of natural colors acquired from Overseal late last year. The Nutri-Seal™ range of food ingredients is now being repositioned to take advantage of the health benefits of natural colors. Andrew Kendrick, technical specialist-functional food ingredients, talked about the business. “We have more than 25 years experience in the sourcing, formulation and stabilizing of these ingredients,” he said, “and all of our products are based on the published scientific literature with recommended dosages based on what you would find in the ‘five fruits and vegetables a day’ program.” He added, “We are trying to teach people to ‘eat color’ to be healthy.” Included in the Nutri-Seal™ line are carotenoids, lycopene, lutein, anthocyanins, curcumin and chlorophyll. Dr. Kendrick commented that carotenoids, lutein and anthocyanins have stimulated the most interest since the range was launched.
In general, the company is pursuing key functional food markets, including beverages, dairy, baby and toddler food, cereal and energy bars. “Down the line,” said Dr. Albrecht, “we are also interested in expanding our product mix to include herbs and spices, many of which are known to have health/wellness benefits. Because of our gentle processing capabilities, we believe we can provide high quality nutrient-rich products while maintaining their excellent natural flavor and color properties.”
The Braes Group also has other unique products in its portfolio. One is Talin (a trademarked product known as Thaumatin in the U.S.) “Talin is arguably the most powerful natural sweetener known to man,” said Dr. Albrecht. “It is derived from the Katemfe plant in West Africa. However, we are not marketing Talin for its sweetening properties, but rather for its somewhat unique ability to mask bitter flavors and to act (in some instances) as a flavor modifier. This is a great complement to our range of fruit and vegetable products,” he said.
Additionally, the company is also involved in the animal feed market, supplying sweeteners and flavor products to the livestock arena. In particular it has developed a product marrying the wellness properties of allicin from garlic with a blend of spice extracts to create a pre/probiotic ingredient for animal feed.
For the future, the company definitely has plans to expand on its current products, but is also open to strategic alliances. “We are looking for natural ingredient building blocks, for technical partnerships and even for marketing alliances,” said Dr. Albrecht. “We have great plans to grow, but we don’t necessarily need to do it all alone.”
And Mr. Garrow summed up further. “I see our role in the industry as a first choice business development partner for customers seeking inspiring ideas and access to all the natural flavor-imparting functional ingredients they could need to translate those ideas into food that looks great, tastes irresistible and is naturally full of goodness.”—E.S.
The Braes Group Limited
Masters House
107 Hammersmith Road
London W14 OQH U.K.
Telephone: 44-208-840-9160
Fax: 44-20-7603-8448
E-mail: fionamannion@cs.com