Smartfresh

Fresh as the Day it was Harvested

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Fresh as the Day it was Harvested

Crunchy apples, months after being harvested? Certainly! One small molecule is all it takes to keep Mother Nature in suspense for a while. Cyclodextrins from WACKER encapsulate the active ingredient and release it as needed.
One small molecule is all it takes to keep Mother Nature in suspense for a while, so that apples and other fruit can remain fresh and crunchy even after weeks or months in storage or transit.
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Yet again, grandma is proven right. Nutritionists strongly recommend that we eat fruit and vegetables as an essential part of a healthy diet. Their advice is for us to eat five servings of fruit or vegetables a day. But people want variety, too. So all kinds of exotic fruit – from pineapples to bananas, mangoes and papayas – are increasingly being sold alongside apples.
Indeed, a vast assortment from all around the world is now available all year. Yet it takes a fair bit of technology and innovation for apples – when kept in cold storage rooms – to keep their firmness and taste for consumers , and for other fruits like avocados and kiwifruits to maintain their good quality when shipped across oceans. The SmartFreshSMQuality System is an innovative freshness-protection system, which allows fruits to keep their quality, texture, taste and appearance better throughout the whole supply chain right through to the consumer.
A sophisticated technology such as Smartfresh

Stopping the Aging Process

The secret to SmartFreshSMtechnology is its active ingredient 1-MCP (1-methylcyclopropene): a very simple molecule similar to ethylene. Ethylene occurs naturally in most fruits, vegetables, flowers and plants. It helps them to grow and mature, but also to eventually over-ripen and spoil. However, ethylene in apples, for example, will make them soft and mushy.
The 1-MCP protects fruits and vegetables from this damaging effect of ethylene that reduces quality and freshness. The 1-MCP works by blocking the ethylene receptors in apples. This action temporarily delays the over-ripening process while fruit is in storage and apples are better able to maintain their natural firmness and juiciness. Working with a volatile like 1-MCP is challenging and calls for sophisticated technology. Enter cyclodextrins from WACKER. The challenge to easily use and apply 1-MCP was circumvented by encapsulating it in cyclodextrins – molecular cones composed of glucose units that can accommodate guest molecules.
The resultant 1-MCP cyclodextrin complex is a powder that’s easy to store, weigh and meter. The 1-MCP is released by its host in the presence of water.

Ideal Compound

“Cyclodextrins are natural degradation products of starch,” explains Dr. Christoph Winterhalter, director of Ingredients at WACKER FINE CHEMICALS. “WACKER produces more than 5,000 metric tons of them each year. A perfect marriage of biotechnology and expertise in chemical synthesis,” says Dr. Winterhalter.

Safe to Use

The SmartFreshSMQuality System is believed to be one of the most important innovations of recent years in the agri-sector. The active agent can be metered with great precision and is effective in the ppb range, i.e. one particle in a billion particles of air. Once it has fulfilled its purpose, it slowly dissipates, leaving no residues – as has been independently confirmed by Stiftung Warentest, a consumer-protection agency.
In 2005, 1-MCP was approved in Germany for apples. Today it is registered in 30 countries on over 25 different fruits and vegetables. The EU and national authorities have confirmed that it is safe for consumers and the environment. For this reason, its use does not have to be reported on labels. Demand for the SmartFreshSMQuality System is set to rise, as further applications are in the pipeline.
More information

Links

The Fascination of Chemistry – WACKER’s Audio Magazine

Cyclodextrins – Molecular Ice-Cream Cones

Cyclodextrins are natural degradation products of starch. They are composed of glucose units grouped in the shape of a truncated ice-cream cone. This cone has space for any guest molecule of appropriate size and chemical nature.

Host and guest are only held together by weak physico-chemical forces. Under suitable conditions, mostly in the presence of water, the guest is released again, chemically unchanged.

WACKER FINE CHEMICALS produces cyclodextrins biotechnologically from plant raw materials. Their trade name is CAVAMAX®.

Cyclodextrin inclusion complexes are already used in many areas, for example in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, textiles and food.

Ethylene and its Opponent

It’s an effect most people are familiar with: bananas kept with apples in a fruit bowl turn brown faster.

The culprit is the ethylene emitted by the apples, which accelerates the ripening of the bananas. This effect on plants, and the fact that plants themselves produce ethylene, has been known since the 1930s.

Ethylene is a very unusual plant regulator: it’s a small molecule made up of just two carbon and four hydrogen atoms – C2H4. It’s a gas under standard conditions – it naturally occurs as a constituent of natural gas, for example.

For ethylene to take effect, it needs assistants. The first one is an ethylene receptor, which is a protein embedded in the membrane of plant cells. This protein contains a so-called binding pocket, which exactly matches the molecular shape of ethylene – much as a lock and key fit together.

When ethylene binds there, a cascade of biochemical reactions in the plant cell is triggered that culminates in the activation of certain genes within the nucleus. These genes in turn stimulate the production of proteins which execute the ethylene program

The molecular structure of the ethylene blocker is similar to that of ethylene, and that’s its secret: taking ethylene’s place, 1-MCP binds to the ethylene receptor. However, as 1-MCP is not a perfect match, the subsequent biochemical reactions are never triggered – just as a wrong key gets stuck in a keyhole without opening the door. When the 1-MCP detaches itself from the receptor it clears the way for the right molecule. Program execution can be resumed.

CAVAMAX®

Learn more on CAVAMAX®