Validating the Claims of Functional Foods

Genevac reports shipping several of its centrifugal evaporator systems to manufacturers of functional foods who are looking to validate their health promotion or disease prevention claims

Functional foods are part of the continuum of products that individuals may consume to improve their health or to help manage a disease. Functional foods include fermented foods with live cultures such as probiotics, natural sweeteners and foods fortified with health-promoting additives such as tea with added ginger which is said to help reduce nausea.

Rod Darrington, Product Manager at Genevac commented "Nutraceuticals and functional foods are intensively researched for their role in maintaining health and preventing diseases. The science behind is growing rapidly not only because of the growing number of new substances or type of novel foods, but also because regulatory bodies require more and more evidence on their efficacy, mode-of-action and safety".

To generate accurate analytical results with food and beverage materials careful sample preparation is critical, especially when the analyte of interest is volatile. The proprietary concentration technology in Genevac evaporator systems has been developed with leading analytical laboratories around the world.  This, together with proprietary technologies like Dri-Pure® and SampleGenie™ ensure that food and beverage samples are concentrated safely, rapidly, and with a very high degree of reproducibility.

Genevac evaporators are increasingly used by researchers seeking to extract functional molecules from natural sources.  Typically researchers take a tissue (or micro-organism broth) sample and then perform a primary solvent extraction resulting in a large volume of crude extract.  The crude extract then requires concentration, for which the Rocket Evaporator is ideal, before being fractionated to isolate each component.  These samples then need to be evaporated before storage or analysis which may require lyophilisation on a Genevac EZ-2 Elite or HT Series Evaporator.

Genevac, part of the SP Scientific group, was founded in 1990.  Today the company employs around 85 people, with manufacturing, R&D and marketing headquartered in Ipswich, UK. Genevac today offers a comprehensive portfolio of evaporators to suit almost any solvent removal application, purchasing budget or productivity requirement.

For further information please contact Genevac on +44-1473-240000 / +1-845-255-5000 or email salesinfo@genevac.co.uk