Blue Tree Technologies nets $2.26m to expand sugar reduction tech for beverages

Blue Tree Technologies—an Israeli startup utilizing a patented course of to selectively take away sugars from juice, milk, and beer—has raised $2.26 million in a spherical led by OurCrowd with participation from Sucden Ventures, the VC arm of meals commodities dealer Sucden.

Gregory Merran, chief funding officer at Sucden, stated: “Within the context of juices, Blue Tree’s know-how, which selectively removes sugars, is particularly related and completely enhances our portfolio of options.”

The funding comes shortly after the agency secured self-GRAS standing for its strategy and scaled its answer with Israeli juice producer Priniv.

“We plan to license the system to juice producers all over the world”

Blue Tree Applied sciences, which is in talks with main juice producers across the globe, is one in every of a number of foodtech companies looking for to chop sugar in juice, with approaches starting from enzymatic therapies that convert sugars to fibers (Better Juice) to microbes that eat the sugar (IncreBio).

Blue Tree, in distinction, makes use of ultrafiltration coupled with adsorption to selectively take away disaccharides corresponding to sucrose, lactose, and maltose from pure drinks corresponding to juice, milk, and beer with out sacrificing style or compromising manufacturers’ clear label credentials.

Based in 2020 by Didier Toubia (cofounder and CEO at cultivated meat startup Aleph Farms) and Yuval Klein, Blue Tree graduated from Israel’s Fresh Start incubator in June 2022. Within the interim interval, the corporate “took its thought from lab scale to prototype scale and signed an settlement with Priniv,” says CEO Michael Gordon, who joined the group in July 2022. “In 2023, we absolutely scaled up our answer and expanded our improvement to different classes past orange juice.”

He provides: “We’ve absolutely built-in our system at Priniv, so we’re simply ready for remaining approval from the Israeli Ministry of Well being so Priniv can begin advertising a 33% sugar diminished orange juice within the Israeli market. Our buyer is the ultimate decision-maker for product launch, contingent upon regulatory approval which is predicted to be acquired any day. We anticipate a This autumn market entry aligned with the “again to highschool” marketing campaign.

“We plan to license the system to juice producers all over the world, and we’re at present negotiating with large-scale producers in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Europe. They’re wanting on the numbers and saying that is price efficient. We’re aiming to cost no more than 5% of the gross margin.”

Producers also can generate income from the sugar that’s faraway from the juice, he notes.

Filtration and adsorption

The fundamental premise behind the tech is that disaccharides (sugar molecules comprising two easy sugars) corresponding to sucrose (comprised of fructose and glucose) and lactose (comprised of galactose and glucose) are usually not as candy as monosaccharides (easy sugars corresponding to glucose and fructose).

In consequence, eradicating 30% of the sugar in a juice by means of eradicating disaccharides doesn’t essentially make a beverage style 30% much less candy, says Gordon. “It’s not a linear impact, so in the event you reduce it by 30%, it tastes extra like 15% as a result of fructose [the simple sugars remaining in the beverage] are sweeter than sucrose. And with a 20% sugar discount utilizing this strategy, you gained’t even discover a distinction.”

“So the query was, how will we take away the disaccharides however depart the monosaccharides and different issues within the juice intact?”

Blue Tree’s first patent describes a two-step process, he explains. “The primary half is extremely filtration and the opposite half is an adsorption course of. We discovered the mineral zeolite acts like a magnet to disaccharides in juice [sucrose] vs monosaccharides and natural acids.”

Extremely-filtration will allow a sure degree of sugar discount, however there’s a restrict, says Gordon. So corporations corresponding to Fairlife could use it to take away some lactose from milk, for instance, however they nonetheless have so as to add enzymes (lactase) to interrupt down the remaining lactose into easy sugars.

“We’ve a second patent [pending] that explores another separation approach, not involving zeolite, mixed with ultrafiltration. Each strategies supply flexibility in utility. However we emphasize that all through the sugar discount course of, together with acidity adjustment, we don’t introduce any exterior components. This ensures a clear label and maintains the pure integrity of the juice.”

“We’re not recommending taking out the entire sugar”

The Blue Tree system allows companies to chop vital quantities of sugar, however on condition that sugar impacts mouthfeel in addition to sweetness, Gordon says companies want to seek out the proper steadiness.

“So in orange juice 50% of the sugar is disaccharides, so we will reduce whole sugar by 50%. In pineapple juice it’s 60%. In milk, we’re capable of take away 75% of the sugar, whereas in beer, we’re capable of take out all of it, so we will create zero-sugar beer. Our first advice is often 30%, though the flexibility to take out extra is there.”

With regards to sweetness, he says, a part of our notion of that is by means of aroma. “If you scent the juice [that has gone through Blue Tree’s treatment], it has the identical scent. So it doesn’t really feel just like the juice has been diluted.”

Labeling

Labeling could differ from one territory to a different, says Gordon. “Within the US, for juice, so long as you’re utilizing 100% pure juice and also you’re not including something, you’re simply eradicating the sugar, you’ll be able to label it as 100% juice. Within the EU, at present, juice that has gone by means of our course of can’t be labeled as juice, however somewhat as a drink or a beverage.”

Nevertheless, this seems to be set to vary underneath the proposed ‘breakfast directives,’ which might allow phrases corresponding to ‘reduced-sugar fruit juice’ supplied nothing has been added to the juice, he notes.

The enterprise mannequin

In response to Gordon: “We provide a leasing mannequin. It’s a turnkey answer, but it surely takes us not more than two months to completely combine our system right into a associate’s manufacturing line. As soon as the system has been absolutely built-in, we cost a service payment to deal with every part. So for instance, the system wants consumable replacements each occasionally, so we deal with it. However the day-to-day upkeep may be very simple [and can be handled by the operator].”

Down the street, he says, “We see our prospects as companions, so we intention to cost royalties.”

Shoppers need much less sugar… and a clear label

Whereas per capita consumption of juice has been falling in some markets—a development that was temporarily reversed during the early weeks of the COVID 19 pandemic when consumers guzzled OJ to shore up their immune programs—customers are searching for lower-sugar choices throughout the beverage set, says Gordon.

However in addition they need pure, much less processed, clear label merchandise, and Blue Tree can ship each. “We see our strategy as a no brainer if merchandise can nonetheless be labeled as sugar diminished 100% juice; you continue to simply have one ingredient on the components checklist.”

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