Good Practice - Project
Development of a new product - cold-pressed organic raw fruit bars
CAP funds were used to implement a pilot project for the development of a new product, namely organic raw fruit bars from local products.
General information
RDP Priority
- P2. Competitiveness
RDP Focus Area
- 2A: Farm’s performance, restructuring & modernisation
RDP Measure
- M16: Cooperation
Summary
Allew Magusameister OÜ is an Estonian company specialising in high quality, hand-made organic chocolates. The company used CAP support to explore the feasibility (to test and standardise the production processes) of a new product: a range of organic raw fruit bars using cold-pressed locally produced fruit.
Results
The technology to use locally produced pears and apples as the main ingredient in organic raw fruit bars was successfully developed.
The production process, nutritional value and shelf-life for this new range of raw fruit bars was determined, enabling the beneficiary to launch them onto the market.
Promoter
Allew Magusameister OÜ
Funding
Total budget - 55 548.00 (EUR)
RDP contribution - 49 993.20 (EUR)
Private - 5 554.80 (EUR)
Resources
Documents
Development of a new product - cold-pressed organic raw fruit bars
(PDF – 1.63 MB)
Links
Context
Organic farming has been steadily growing in Estonia, but further processing of organic ingredients into added-value food products is still underdeveloped. The Allew Magusameister OÜ company specialises in organic chocolate production and wanted to expand its activities by processing and marketing new products made with local organic ingredients. The company outlined a pilot project and set about seeking CAP co-financing to explore the possibility of replacing the raisins and dates in their raw fruit bars with locally produced organic pears and apples.
Objectives
The aim of this pilot project was to develop a new food product in which typical ingredients (dates and raisins) would be replaced by locally produced organic fruit.
Activities
At the beginning of the project, the properties and nutritional value of different raw materials were assessed based on the available literature. The local procurement of raw materials was considered and potential suppliers were contacted. Raw materials were gathered and analysed to determine their properties and different drying and pressing technologies were tested.
Experiments were conducted on different combinations of raw materials with various recipes and prototype raw fruit bars were developed. The sensory and chemical properties of these were assessed, as was their production at scale, followed by consumer studies.
During the last stage of the project, the nutritional value of the tested and approved recipes was assessed. Suitable packaging materials were selected, and further studies were carried out to determine the expected shelf-life of the developed products.
The results of the project were presented at the FoodBalt 2018 conference, and a master’s thesis was written on the basis of the experiments.
Main results
The technology to use locally produced pears and apples as the main ingredients in organic raw fruit bars was successfully developed.
Testing and evaluation of the production process, nutritional value and shelf-life for this new range of raw fruit bars was supported, enabling the beneficiary to launch them onto the market.
Key lessons
When working with organic raw materials, the standardisation of different processes can be challenging due to several factors. The sugar content of apples/pears, which determines their structural behaviour in raw fruit bars, exemplifies why thorough testing is an absolute necessity, e.g. for optimisation of the final recipe, and why added-value processing can be out of reach without additional support.