Food-Safe Polymers in Ingredient Dispersion

Maintaining uniform dispersion of ingredients like sugars, starches, flavours, and stabilisers is essential. Though less widely known than their industrial counterparts, food-compatible copolymers serve as critical processing aids, improving flow, consistency, and product quality while adhering to food safety standards.

During high-speed mixing or continuous production, dry or semi-soluble ingredients like sugars and starches tend to form clumps or settle unevenly. Food-safe copolymers can mitigate these issues by enhancing initial wetting and dispersibility, maintaining suspension during mixing, and preventing sedimentation in bulk batches

This supports product consistency and lightens the mechanical load on mixers, helping to reduce downtime. Increasing demands for cleaner, more efficient food processing have driven the adoption of food-grade dispersants in commercial production facilities.

Non-Reactive, Food-Contact Safe Aids

Copolymers used in food processing must meet stringent regulatory criteria to ensure safety and inertness. Common applications include flavour dispersion, beverage clarification, and improving the consistency of fortified drinks. Multinational suppliers such as Ingredion offer starch-compatible polymers that maintain stability even in high-acid or high-shear environments.

Advantages of these polymers include:

• No chemical reaction with ingredients Doesn’t leave unwanted/tainted taste or residue Complies with food-contact materials regulations like EU 10/2011 and FDA 21 CFR

In food manufacturing, process consistency and hygiene are non-negotiable. Food-safe copolymers contribute by ensuring uniform flow through pipes and fillers, reducing clogging and build-up in equipment, and supporting CIP (clean-in-place) protocols with minimal residue.

This helps boost plant efficiency and upholds HACCP compliance by reducing microbial risk zones.

Acriflow and Bespoke Food-Safe Copolymers

Acriflow UL2 link to https://www.witton.com/products/acriflow/acriflow-ul-2-sodium-polycrylate/ was developed for sugar processing and has been used in the UK sugar beet processing and in Caribbean/South American sugar cane processing for many years.  

For customers requiring tailored, compliant formulations, Witton also provides toll manufacturing services for advanced food-grade copolymers on behalf of third parties. This includes producing bespoke dispersants under NDA, with full adherence to food-contact regulations and scalable batch capabilities, enabling brands to bring safe, efficient polymer solutions to market without investing in their own production infrastructure.

Get in touch to explore food-compatible polymer solutions that meet your compliance and performance needs.