What are the applications?
Cellulose and cellulose derivatives are essential in a variety of applications in the field of foodstuff, feedstuff, pharmaceutical products, personal care as well as other applications.
Food
Feed
Pharmaceutical
Personal Care
Industrial
What are the benefits?
Cellulose and cellulose derivatives have multiple functional and technological benefits, which made their popularity for use in many products of the daily life.
Food and feed
In food and feed, cellulose and cellulose derivatives help make the products more enjoyable, preserve their consistency and enhance the safety of food and feed.
Common uses include:
- Help thickening products such as jellies, jams, desserts, yogurts, candies.
- Add texture when reducing fat or sugar in food and drinks.
- Stabilise a solution, mixture or suspension of ingredients or nutrients.
- Create structure and textures in vegetarian recipes.
- Generate easy-to-use dosage form for feeding animals, e.g. granules, pellets.
- Allow a good free-flowability, e.g. as an anticaking for cheese application.
Nutritional benefits
The offered grades of celluloses and cellulose derivatives can improve the nutritional concept of food. Due to their low caloric value and high fiber content, a reduction of the available energy combined with fiber enrichment can be addressed in the development of food products.
Beside these nutritional points, their unique functional characteristics complete and deliver options to e.g. the replacement and mimic of fat to lower overall energy level as well as to promote the tasty profile of the food product. For required product reformulations in the framework of the European Farm to Fork Strategy, celluloses and cellulose derivatives are relevant ingredients in the protective concept against non-communicable diseases – like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Pharmaceutical
In pharmaceutical products, they play important roles as multifunctional excipients, which can be used as:
- Create the coating to extend and delay the release of the pharmaceutical formulation.
- Enhance the compressibility and stability of tablets and pills.
- Help thickening and stabilising liquid dosage form products.
- Provide binding in granules and tablets and gelling in semi-solid preparations.
Personal care
In personal care products, they primarily function as a thickener and stabiliser e.g. in toothpaste. With their specific variety of technological benefits for all mentioned applications, cellulose and cellulose derivatives make every diet more enjoyable, enhance product safety and improve product sustainability.
