Ingredients supplier Solvay has extended the range of one of its flagship products, a vanillin flavor branded as Rhovanil Natural CW, with three new natural flavor ingredients: Rhovanil Natural Delica, Alta and Sublima.

Branded as non-GMO, the Rhovanil Natural CW line is produced by the bioconversion of ferulic acid, a natural compound found in rice bran.

“Rhovanil Natural Delica, Alta and Sublima are cost-effective natural solutions providing the Food and Beverage market with easy access to EU Natural flavor labeling. This new offer is aligned with the current consumer trend toward natural and clean label ingredients,” remarks Jo Grosemans, head of Naturals at Solvay Aroma Performance.

“The flowability of these new grades is higher in formulations than that of pure vanillin, resulting in better dispersion and greater homogeneity in the food matrix such as chocolate, bakery and dairy products,” adds Caroline Calin, technical marketing for Naturals.

“These three new grades also reduce development time and are specially designed to facilitate the switch to natural vanillin.”

The flowability of these new grades is touted as higher than that of pure vanillin.The new launch aligns with Solvay’s newest growth platform “Renewable materials and biotechnology,” which encompasses solutions toward renewable solutions and biotechnology.

Innovating around a time-honored extract
Long hailed as the “queen of flavors,” vanilla continues to attract investment toward its novel and sustainable production methods as it maintains hold as one of the most requested and price-volatile ingredients globally.

Earlier this year, flavor supplier Mane helped to sequence the Vanilla planifolia – the single species responsible for most of the world’s vanilla – to mitigate crop disease and build a more sustainable vanilla bean supply chain.

Meanwhile, science has pushed the boundaries of converting inedible objects into vanilla flavors for circularity, such as in a British-led project that converts post-consumer PET into vanillin via a series of chemical reactions. 

The team from the University of Edinburgh lab-engineered E. coli to transform terephthalic acid – a molecule derived from PET – into the molecule known for giving vanilla its characteristic taste and smell. The scientists demonstrated the technique by converting a used plastic bottle into vanillin.

Due to its mainstay popularity, vanilla has been targeted this year by investigations in France uncovering fake production and fraudulent labels.