Flavour encapsulation and controlled release – a review

Abstract

SummaryFlavours can be among the most valuable ingredients in any food formula. Even small amounts of some aroma substance can be expensive, and because they are usually delicate and volatile, preserving them is often a top concern of food manufacturers. Encapsulation describes different processes to cover an active compound with a protective wall material and it can be employed to treat flavours so as to impart some degree of protection against evaporation, reaction, or migration in a food. Encapsulation of flavours has been attempted and commercialized using many different methods such as spray drying, spray chilling or spray cooling, extrusion, freeze drying, coacervation and molecular inclusion. The choice of appropriate microencapsulation technique depends upon the end use of the product and the processing conditions involved in the manufacturing product. This overview describes each method cited above in terms of the basic chemical and/or physical principles involved and covers mechanisms of flavour release from food matrices.

Microencapsulation: concepts, mechanisms, methods and some applications in food technology

“…Atomization has some advantages over other methods: large equipment availability, possibility of employing a wide variety of encapsulating agents, potentially large-scale production, simple equipment, good effi ciency, reduced storage and transport costs and low process cost. The main disadvantage of atomization is the production of non-uniformly sized materials (MADENE et al, 2006).…”

Linear viscoelasticity of complex coacervates

“…The self-assembly of these materials is driven by entropy, where the initial electrostatic attraction between oppositely-charged macro-ions results in the release of small, bound counter-ions and the restructuring of water molecules [1][2][3][4]. Complex coacervates have a long history of use in the food [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] and personal care [14,15] industries, and have found increasing utility as a platform for drug and gene delivery [1][2][3][4], as well as underwater adhesives [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]. Coacervation has also recently been implicated in the formation of various biological assemblies [1,[14][15][16]55,…”

Encapsulation of liquid smoke flavoring in ca-alginate and ca-alginate-chitosan beads

“…However, manufacturing and storage processes, packaging materials and ingredients in foods often cause modifications in overall flavor by reducing aroma compound intensity or producing off-flavor components. Therefore, to limit aroma degradation or loss during processing and storage, it is beneficial to encapsulate volatile ingredients prior to use in foods or beverages (Madene et al 2006).…”

“…The two majors industrial processes are spray-drying and dripping (Madene et al 2006). Encapsulation of flavors via dripping in glassy carbohydrate matrices has been used for volatile and unstable flavors.…”