SIAL 2024 live: Ocean Spray unlocks dried cranberry for “nostalgic” snack and flavor concepts

Ocean Spray Ingredients, in partnership with Germany-based Bösch Boden Spies, is showcasing its Sweetened Dried Cranberry (SDC) snack mixes and flavor concepts at the ongoing trade show SIAL 2024 in Paris. F&B formulators can use the ingredients in applications like dairy, bakery, snack bars and confectionery.

Food Ingredients First catches up with Sarah O’Neil, the company’s senior managing director, Global Ingredients, to unlock how the company is promoting dried cranberry use in formulations through its “thought leadership” and culinary insights.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is really bring sweetened dried cranberries more out into the open and show the versatility for how customers can work with this in their applications to bring new ideas to consumers who are always looking for more adventure,” she tells us live from the show floor.

The company aims to help manufacturers envision how to incorporate cranberries into F&B formulations for their end applications.

“We’re showcasing a few interesting, salty, savory products, like our cheese pretzel mix, which actually has a sweet and dried cranberry in it. We also have our matcha latte mix that has sweetened dried cranberry mix in it.”

Ocean Spray showcased matcha latte mix, cheese pretzel mix and French toast mix at the event.The company is also tapping into consumers’ “nostalgic mood” through its breakfast concepts for french toast formulation that includes sliced, glycerated and sweetened dried cranberries, maple almonds, walnuts and banana chips.

Other concepts include Ocean Spray’s Soft and Moist SDC, Raspberry Infused SDC, Glycerated SDC, Double Diced SDC and Cranberry Seeds to deliver both function and flavor.

Tapping fruit versatility

Ocean Spray is a cooperative and represents 700 farmer families in the US, Canada and Chile, that grow the cranberries, which O’Neil calls “super fruits.”

“We offer sweet and dried cranberries and also sell cranberry seeds and concentrate, which goes into beverages and puree,” says O’Neil. The puree can be used in smoothies, beverages and dairy products.

The company’s range of SDCs is claimed to have high process tolerance, maintain their color, shape and texture in all applications and have a long shelf life. They come in whole (snacking, confection), diced (bakery, dairy, snack bars), sliced (snacking, confection) and double diced (snack bars, confection) varieties.

“We think dried cranberries are probably most recognized and loved and certainly a global food. Everybody understands that this product is something consumers are searching for.”

At the event, the company also unveiled various new flavored cranberry options including Brown Sugar SDC, Sour Blueberry Lemon SDC and Chili Lime SDC with samples for visitors.

Promoting health benefits

O’Neil considers cranberry to be a superfood due to its inherent nutritional properties. 

Diced and double diced sweetened dried cranberries can be used in snack bars.According to the company, 58% of consumers choose cranberries for flavor, while 36% opt for them due to their perceived health benefits.

“One of the things that we’re focused on in terms of delivering that value is we can provide an assortment of different product solutions that are fit for different applications. For example, we have our classic sweet and dry cranberry in the snack mix area. But for modified or optimized nutritional profiles, we offer products with different sweetener alternatives,” she explains.

The company also offers products with infused fruit juice instead of sugar and recently launched a product in the US that uses “allulose as the sweetener and that product was recently certified as a ketogenic friendly product.” 

“We now offer a ketogenic friendly sweetened dried cranberry. It’s not ready yet for commercialization in Europe, but that is something that we’re working on to get approval for the sweetener agent allulose, which is in the ketogenic sweet and dry cranberry,” she concludes.

With live reporting from Anvisha Manral at SIAL 2024 in Paris, France