Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SLADCORE (SLADCORE as the new generation table sugar)

Teaser

SLADCORE is a technology-based modification of sugar resulting in similar structural and organoleptic characteristics as sucrose, up to 140 sweetness index, and cost competitive vs. all existing sugar-reduction solutions currently available on the market. SLADCORE is both a...

Summary

SLADCORE is a technology-based modification of sugar resulting in similar structural and organoleptic characteristics as sucrose, up to 140 sweetness index, and cost competitive vs. all existing sugar-reduction solutions currently available on the market.

SLADCORE is both a transformational technology process and the novelty food it produces.

SLADCORE`s innovative approach is based on the principle that “fixing sugar is better than replacing it«. Through structural modification of table sugar, the SLADCORE team of the Slovenian based innovation company TOSLA d.o.o. has invented a plug-n-play disruptive technology to improve the expected benefits of sucrose and achieve magnified industrial results.

The newly improved table sugar is now SLADCORE, a novel ingredient project.

https://www.sladcore.com/

Work performed

In the period from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report several specific objectives were addressed regarding the technological concept of feasibility study.

Selection of the best suitable carrier able to express all pre-determined characteristics was conducted. From the group of several hundreds possible carrier materials, through theoretical and practical evaluation, only a small group of natural, adequate carriers was selected for further research.

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of corresponding carriers was developed in order to estimate their impact on human health, ecosystem and resource depletion. Although “teaser products” were obtained in this period, in order to reach final product characteristics in the terms of physicochemical and sensory characterisation of the obtained product, more studies and experiments will be conducted in the next period.

One of the most promising results obtained refer to the low-temperature spray drying of sugar syrup with high yields and total product recovery. Previous investigation in this field was focused only on the standard high temperatures spray drying process. However, several challenges were addressed in the conducted research, mainly referring to the product stability, texture and hygroscopic characteristics. Further research should be focused on the formulation of crystallization procedure prior to product drying process aiming at the production of stable, crystallized product having all necessary “sugar characteristics”.

We have further analysed our target market and entered into different forms of business cooperation with a wide variety of stakeholders.

SLADCORE project has been presented at Future-food Tech in New York and at Seeds&Chips 2018, Global Food Innovation Summit in Milano, where we have been awarded the FUTURE FOOD AWARD.
The results of our dissemination and exploitation strategy are shown in received invitations to several accelerators, such as Forward Food Milano and Kickstart Mass Challenge Zurich; interest to invest was expressed by several VCs attending shows and e-pitching events, like https://www.euroquity.com/en/home

In terms of Intellectual Property Management, we have filed a patent application for our solution in April 2018, under the reference number 2018042616022XXXDE (German Patent and Trade Mark Office).

Final results

The corresponding period of SLADCORE development provided novel results in the area sugar-rich syrups drying and maximizing the production yield through the application of cutting edge technology and the concepts previously under-exploited in the food area.

Furthermore, possible bottlenecks in technological process of SLADCORE production in terms of yield, technological process manipulation, equipment modification were thoroughly investigated and several critical points were identified.

The obtained results of the report period covered highlight the increasing interest of interdisciplinary research, which could create strong synergy within the food, pharmaceutical and material research, able to generate products beyond the state of the art concepts.

These are the next development steps for SLADCORE from the technological point of view:

1. Improved bulking properties while maintaining key features of the end product.
2. Further decrease of sugar content by implementing additional enhanced carrier / agent.
3. Pharmaceutical application: upgrading production environment to acquire excipient GMP (good manufacturing practice) standard to open up new sales channels.
4. Improvement of existing on-site sugar manufacturing technology by avoiding energy intensive operations (crystallization, centrifugation, crystal drying, etc.) and obtaining added value product SLADCORE without intermediary steps (table sugar).

Website & more info

More info: http://www.sladcore.com.