Oleoresins and Compounds Specialty - Product Info

What are Oleoresins?

Oleoresins are natural colouring or flavouring extracts, which are derived from different parts of the plants such as seeds, roots, leaves or fruits.

Probably the most interesting economic extraction of these oleoresins is carried out by a solvent extraction. Typical solvents are hexane, acetone, ethanol and methanol.

Furthermore supercritical carbon dioxide (CO² extraction) and water vapour are being used.

The term Oleoresin is derived partly from the Oleo as a reference to the essential oil which almost all the oleoresins contain, and partly from the term Resin, which stands for the likewise extracted resins, waxes and secondary active substances.

Why Oleoresines?

Oleoresins combine many advantages in themselves compared to the raw spice:

• High concentration of flavors and fragrances.
• Standardized and consistent quality.
• Oleoresin-specific values such as colour units with paprika, turmeric, capsicum and essential oil content can be adjusted to customer requirements.
• Microbiologically Oleoresins are to be regarded as practically -germ-free-
• Cost savings in storage compared to the raw spices.
• Oleoresins are usually available in oil- and water-soluble form.

Declaration of Oleoresins

Oleoresins are 100 percent natural products. This means they are extracted to 100 percent of the original plants.

According to the EU flavor regulation 1334/2008 Oleoresins are declared as natural spice extracts (e.g. type pepper).