Food Grade

In meat products, carrageenan contributes to gel formation and water retention. Carrageenan addition is of special interest in low-fat meat products because fat reduction often leads to unacceptable, tough textures. When carrageenan is incorporated in these formulations, they improve the textural characteristics of the product by decreasing toughness and increasing juiciness.

Carrageenan can be used for various types of dessert gel, Jelly, gummy, pudding, etc. Carrageenan can be present by itself in the dessert gel, it can also be combined with some other gums to get different texture (such as konjac, locust bean gum, etc). It is good to be used in milk-based desserts like flan, silky pudding, etc. Carrageenan can also be used for cake glaze.

Beer manufacturing has been using carrageenan for decades. The main function of carrageenan in the beer manufacturing is to provide beer clarity with wort protein precipitation. The filtering loss of beer production can reduce by 0.2-0.3% and this alone can offset the cost of carrageenan. With the use of carrageenan, wort and fermentation broth can well clarify and this will be beneficial to filtering and fermentation. By doing this, the cost will not be raised, so the use of carrageenan is suggested in beer production to improve the quality.

Cheese is produced from coagulated milk protein. Carrageenan has good interaction with milk protein makes it very suitable for cheese production. The gel strength of carrageenan gives strong bond with milk casein. Small amount of carrageenan can increase cheese firmness and maintain the cheese structure. Carrageenan can also be use to stabilize cheese like product and fat free cheese product.

Carrageenan is very useful in the dairy production because carrageenan has good interaction with the milk protein. Most of dairy and ice cream companies are using carrageenan to improve the mouthfeel and to get the creamy texture. Carrageenan helps to stabilize cocoa in chocolate milk. Carrageenan is also used in ice cream to control the ice crystal formation.

The essential ingredients in toothpaste are chalk or a similar mild abrasive, detergent, flavour, water and a thickening agent that will provide enough body to the paste to ensure that the abrasive is kept in suspension and that there is no separation of water. A thixotropic thickener is preferable, i.e. that has gel-like properties when allowed to stand but that will flow when pressure is applied to it. Iota carrageenan, at about 1 percent, is one of the most useful thickening agents, it meets the above criteria and gives a paste that is easily rinsed from the toothbrush. When the size of the toothpaste market is considered, even at 1 percent concentration this represents a large market for iota.