Innovations driving the confectionery market

Purac Corbion’s Edwin Bontenbal explains how sweets manufacturers can improve product stability and shelf life

A REVIEW of the global confectionery market shows that Asia Pacific accounts for $36.1 billion, or nearly 19% of the world’s sales, a 13.2% jump from last year. This solidifies the region’s position as the largest sugar confectionery market by retail value. Within the confectionery segments, the region posted 12%, 15.5% and 9.8% gains in the chocolate, sugar and gum segments, respectively.

With the global consolidation of the confectionery industry, the supply chain requires products to maintain their quality for a longer period of time. Confectionery is especially sensitive. Hard candies, biscuits, chocolates, jellied items, sugar coated drops or tablets, sugar and popcorn often lose quality and shelf life when they come into contact with high humidity.

“Consumers today want limitless access to snacks and confectionery, so product stability throughout the entire supply chain is crucial. Choosing the right ingredients helps to prevent stickiness and loss of flavour over time, thereby guaranteeing the quality of the product during its shelf life,” says Edwin Bontenbal*, Business Development, Food at Purac Corbion, a leading ingredients specialist.

Confectionery manufacturers looking to take advantage of this growing sector for product diversification and extension, however, do have to contend with more than just a sticky product.

Impact of moisture and humidity

Some typical problems caused by moisture include bloom in chocolates. Bloom is the result of fat and sugar crystals rising to the surface if the chocolate absorbs moisture during packaging. Moisture also inhibits the process flow, impeding production as material sticks to the high speed processing and packaging machinery and also to the wrapping material. Moisture also creates a problem with hygiene, resulting in loss in the final product quality.

Uncontrolled humidity and moisture during the manufacturing and coating process of confectionery is responsible for the change in the structure/dimension of the film core interface; grainy and irregular coating; increase in residual moisture content; and improper adhesion, that is, degradation of coating quality in the presence of moisture.

Humid conditions also affect storage life of candies. Most candies are stored between one week to about a year between manufacture and consumption. During this long period candies can become stale and sticky if not kept under proper conditions. It is important that a candy does not lose its quality and flavour during storage time. Coated candies like gumballs or chocolate-covered nuts can benefit from using dry air to speed drying, as high temperatures would melt the product. Coated candies or chocolates with a high-quality gloss surface finish can only be obtained with the aid of dry air from desiccant dehumidifiers.

Quality and shelf life dating

Another way to express the shelf life paradigm is to minimise the disappointment of consumers when they come into contact with a product that is no longer acceptable to eat. This requires an understanding of what quality level is still acceptable at the end of shelf life, namely how much degradation of the product can occur before too many consumers consider it no longer acceptable. Open dating alerts the consAir VaporMax Shoes