Olam Coffee develops novel superfruit products from upcycled coffee cherry cascara

Wet cascara on a conveyer belt

London

 

Olam Coffee, part of Olam Food Ingredients (ofi), has developed a range of coffee cherry cascara products as a key ingredient for beverage infusions and concentrates across multiple applications, from ice teas to nutrition bars, to meet the growing trend for healthy indulgence.

 

Cascara – translated from Spanish as 'husk' - is the pulp and skin of the coffee cherry fruit. Its flavour is very different from coffee, often described as sweet and fruity with notes of cherry, raisins, and even caramel. Coffee farmers have used it for years to make tea infusions, but it is typically regarded as an unusable by-product by the coffee industry and composted for use as crop fertiliser, or discarded altogether.

 

Today, there is a growing awareness of cascara as a sustainable superfood due to its unique flavour and perceived health benefits, with several times the antioxidants of blueberries, acai, pomegranate and other known superfruits.1 In addition, bioactive food compounds such as polyphenols and chlorogenic acid, which are present in coffee cherry cascara, have promising potential to help patients with obesity. The caffeine content can also be considerably lower than coffee.

There is also the environmental benefit of utilising the skin and pulp that’s otherwise discarded as a bi-product in the primary processing stage”

 

“And as demand for this superfruit grows, upcycling cascara will provide more coffee farmers with an additional source of income.”

Siva Subramanian | Vice President of Innovation at Olam Coffee

Olam Coffee currently sources cascara from its single estate coffee plantations in Brazil, Laos, Tanzania and Zambia, with integrated processing capabilities, which provide a year-round certified3 supply of quality cascara that’s traceable back to the specific block. Their teams have carried out multiple trials of ‘husk’ and ‘pulped’ cascara production, experimenting with coffee varieties, cherry ripeness and harvesting and processing techniques to define suitability for specific food ingredient applications, such as teas or natural confectionery flavourings.

 

There are two main processing methods which produce different flavour profiles. During the wet processing method, the fruit pulp is collected and dried slowly on raised beds in a controlled environment. The resulting ‘pulped’ cascara, has a sweeter, fruitier flavour and deeper colour than the ‘husk’ variety – produced using the dry or natural method – and lends itself well to fruit concentrate applications and extracts.

 

Olam Coffee can offer a range of cascara products, namely dry cascara for tea infusions and flour; liquid cascara concentrates for jams, jellies, dessert toppings and bakery fillings; and soluble cascara powder for use in hot and cold RTD beverages and mixes. It will also be available for nutraceutical and cosmetic use as an as antioxidant supplement. Olam Coffee will work with companies and brands directly to co-create bespoke cascara products.

 

At their Innovation Center in Fresno, California, Olam continues to develop new cascara offerings derived from various processing conditions, in partnership with external laboratories and customers to meet their specifications.

 

Food safety continues to be a primary focus and Olam Coffee is working with local partners and agencies to secure wide-spread use of cascara for integration in multiple applications on the market.

Laboratory scale vacuum concentration of cascara extract and
Sample of a cascara tea infusion

Liquid cascara process

1 Certified by UTZ, Rainforest Alliance

2 ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) score

3 A. Heeger et al. / Food Chemistry 221 (2017) 969–975

About olam food Ingredients

 

olam food ingredients (ofi) is a new operating group born out of Olam International. ofi offers sustainable, natural, value-added food products and ingredients so that consumers can enjoy the healthy and indulgent products they love. It consists of Olam’s industry-leading businesses of Cocoa, Coffee, Edible Nuts, Spices and Dairy.

 

ofi has built a unique global value chain presence including its own farms, farm-gate origination and manufacturing facilities. ofi partners with customers, leveraging its complementary and differentiated portfolio of “on-trend” food products, to co-create solutions that anticipate and meet changing consumer preferences as demand increases for healthier food that’s traceable and sustainable.

 

Olam International is headquartered and listed in Singapore and currently ranks among the top 30 largest primary listed companies in terms of market capitalisation on SGX-ST.

 

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More information on Olam can be found at www.olamgroup.com.

 

Olam is located at 7 Straits View, Marina One East Tower #20-01, Singapore 018936.


Telephone: +65 63394100, Facsimile: +65 63399755.

 

Issued on behalf of Olam International Limited by:

WATATAWA Consulting, 77 Robinson Road, Robinson 77 #33-00, Singapore 068896

For further information, please contact:

Contacts for Corporate Communications

Nikki Barber

Group Head of PR

+44 2074848994, 7568108555

nikki.barber@olamnet.com

Contacts for WATATAWA Consulting

Ong Chor Hao

Deputy Director

+65 96272674

chorhaoo@we-watatawa.com