Taura Natural Ingredients will showcase its low glycemic index URC® fruit pieces at this year’s Food Ingredients Europe (FIE) show, highlighting the rich opportunities they offer for creating delicious snacks that provide slow release energy.

Exhibiting on Stand 8A71, Taura’s representatives will be on hand to discuss the results of independent GI testing conducted recently on two of its biggest selling URC fruit products— JusFruit URC Apple Strawberry and JusFruit URC Mixed Berry. The tests confirmed conclusively that both registered as low GI—a measure indicating that they release energy slowly into the bloodstream, which can help to keep hunger at bay and assist in managing blood glucose levels.

The results open the door to the use of health claims on products made from Taura’s URC fruit pieces. The European Commission recently adopted into law an EFSA-approved health claim that “Consumption of foods containing fructose leads to a lower blood glucose rise compared to foods containing sucrose or glucose.” A condition of using the claim is that the sucrose or glucose content in the product in question should be at least 30 percent lower than in a comparative product—an outcome that is achievable using Taura’s URC fructose-rich fruit ingredients.

Peter Dehasque, chief executive of Taura, said: “Support for the benefits of a low GI diet is growing fast in nutrition and regulatory circles, and it’s a great time for food manufacturers to get on board and start adding fruit to their products to take advantage of this. With their naturally high fructose content, many of Taura’s URC ingredients can help manufacturers ride this wave of opportunity by producing delicious low GI products consumers will love.”

FIE will take place at the Frankfurt Messe in Germany Nov. 19 to 21, 2013. Taura will also debut a range of new URC concept flavours to demonstrate the potential for developing innovative products that are sure to surprise and excite consumers, including fruit blended with peanut butter, cola, mint and pepper. New cut sizes for snacking and ingredient applications will also be on show for the first time.

URC (Ultra Rapid Concentration) is a unique process of concentrating the taste, texture and natural goodness of fruit into pieces, flakes and pastes for use in applications such as snacks, confectionery, chocolate, baked goods and cereals.