For centuries, spices from far-flung lands have been enriching people's taste experiences. RAPS was founded in 1924 as a spice shop, and has been working with flavours ever since. Today RAPS works with around 1,400 raw materials. This is increasingly done through contract planting or our own plantations. This ensures both availability and the quality of these raw materials.
RAPS has evolved to become a solutions provider to industry, and so knows the requirements of all the various sectors ranging from the meat products industry, ready meals delicatessen products, and dairy products to the bakery and confectionery industry. Innovations and trends are identified early and packaged in solutions which meet the market's needs. Whether we are dealing with regional specialities at home or ways of implementing international ideas.

The basis for consistently high quality products is the quality of the ingredients. In order to ensure this RAPS is active on all the ingredient markets in the world. With broad market knowledge we can make a focussed selection. New ingredients are always needed thanks to changing consumer behaviour. Currently, under the heading of Clean Label, more and more alternatives which do not require labelling are being developed as E-number substitutes. RAPS research is focused on finding viable alternatives whilst ensuring flavour, functionality and product costings are maintained. For many years the effectiveness of alternative ingredients such as rosemary, redbush (rooibos) and various seeds has been a focus of our research. Health aspects play a role here too. Strategic ingredients to provide taste and functionality are increasingly being sourced by RAPS from contract growers. In order to achieve specific functionality or taste profiles it is often necessary to clean, prepare and process the ingredients. Here RAPS has a wide variety of processes available, some of it patented technology.
In order to meet the many requirements of different food laws for our customers, RAPS food law department is manned by a very broad and international team.

To allow taste and functionality to reach their full potential, ingredients generally require processing before they are sold on to industry.

powder/dry

Frequently what is needed is not just a single ingredient but a blend. Even when blending are dry, powdered ingredients, it still needs special skills. What is important is to keep the mechanical impact to a minimum when mixing. This applies especially to coated products. Using our coating technology, powdered products are enveloped in such a way that they can be mixed into liquids or pastes. And the coating also prevents undesirable chemical reactions taking place. The blending granules of different sizes or different weights is also a challenge in the industry. Ingredients with different specific weights need to be evenly distributed in a blend and must not separate out before they are packaging.

liquid/paste

Blending skills for liquid and paste substances need to cover both fresh and frozen ingredients. The blending of products which are in different conditions is a particular challenge (fresh + fresh, fresh + frozen, frozen + frozen). The homogeneity of the blend needs to be ensured independent of the mixing conditions.
Industry can choose what they want when purchasing blends. Depending on the recipe, products can be sold fresh with a minimum shelf-life of 8 - 36 days. Stabilised liquid products can be preserved for 6 - 12 months. When frozen a minimum shelf-life of 24 months can be achieved. Ambient products, with the help of preservatives, will keep at room temperature (approx. 20 °C) for 12 to 24 months.

Controlled Release means the gradual dispersal of specific substances. This effect can be achieved using various different technologies.

Coating means covering the smallest particles of critical ingredients. This can be done with standard RAPS products and also customer products for use in further processing. For example, stabilised paprika crisps are tossed in RAPS decorative flavours. Thanks to the coating, the colour of the ingredients remains stable and they keep well.
Coating can also prevent undesirable premature chemical or physical reactions. This is of interest with food acids, such as malic and tartaric acids in wine gums. Even for baking powder, the functionality release can be controlled by use of coatings so that it only takes place at a particular temperature and then is highly concentrated. For soups and sauces, on the other hand, the opposite effect is desirable. Flavours should be released continuously, so that the products can be kept warm for a long period and still be ready to serve, without losing flavour.

Flavocaps

Flavocaps are micro-encapsulated special flavours which provide high flavour intensity and long-term stability, together with favourable micro-biological properties. Particularly in products with a high moisture content the release of flavour is considerably delayed.

CPF/PGSS

CPF (Concentrated Powder Form) and PGSS (Particles from Gas Saturated Solutions) technologies make it possible to turn liquids into powder form. By changing the form of the mixture, liquid and dry recipe ingredients can be mixed, which is used for example for powdered soups and sauces. It also allows functional substances, such as Omega 3 or Omega 6 fish oils to be converted into powder. These are preserved by adding rosemary extract and the fish odour is neutralised using essential oils. This means that these valuable substances can be added to dressings, snacks, food additives etc.

The subject of ingredient also plays a major role in our research. Ingredients are tested for functionality in order to optimise their use. In parallel we continuously search for alternatives and substitutes for ingredients. An important task, particularly with an eye on sustainability and shortage of resources.
We also dedicate research to finding new production technologies for processing spices, excipients and additives for the RAPS Group. One result here, for example, has been the extruded products. By means of extrusion the surface structures of substances are changed so that, for example, when heated on a grill the ingredients do not burn so quickly. The natural flavour of the ingredients remains unchanged.

We have the capabilities of offering a wide range of packaging solutions from sachets to containers, based on customer’s needs, whilst maintaining an eye on costs and practicality.

RAPS is active around the world. Thanks to our close contacts with local companies and agents in over 40 countries the RAPS experts know about the taste preferences in all the different regions of the world, can spot trends and are always learning about new ingredients. This is the basis from which international know-how and regional specialities are both produced. In line with our motto: global mind - local taste.

More information about the international product development. [more]