product development

Using Fruit Purees in Cannabis Gummies

July 7, 2022 by Paul Blumer

Bolstered by the coronavirus pandemic, sales of edibles – spearheaded by gummies – have skyrocketed to eclipse sales of marijuana flower, year-over-year, since 2020. Accounting for almost $1 billion in sales in 2020, the gummies market alone grew by a staggering 31% last year outpacing nearly every category of edibles.

What started with weed brownies, rice krispies treats, and cookies has expanded exponentially to include products like weed-infused beef jerky, pretzels, and potato chips. Lately, the industry has also turned toward mints, hard candies, and especially gummies.

Why are gummies popular?

First and foremost, they’re delicious. Who doesn’t like gummy bears or Sour Patch Kids? But looking beyond their snackability, there are a few reasons why cannabis gummies have enjoyed such a meteoric rise in popularity.

Precision dosing – Because of their production methods, each gummy is exactly the same size and contains exactly the right amount of THC or CBD so it doesn’t get easier to accurately dose than with gummies.

Convenience – It doesn’t require much appetite to eat a small piece of candy—but how often are you in the mood to eat a big fudgy brownie or chocolate-chip cookie? Especially for medical cannabis users, gummies are much more manageable.

Longer shelf life – Baked goods, such as brownies or cookies, go stale and lose their decadent chewy texture over time. But a sealed piece of candy can last almost indefinitely.

They travel better – Going to the beach with chocolate edibles is not going to end up well. Not only will the melting of the edible ruin the chocolate, but it also ends up ruining the terpenes and cannabinoids. Gummies, especially those made with pectin instead of gelatin, have a much higher melting point making them a much better travel buddy.

How cannabis gummies are made

Making gummies is not rocket science, but it is food science. At the most basic, all it takes is water, sugar, gelling agent (e.g. pectin), flavoring of some kind, and something to add color.

Mix it up, heat it up, and pour it into a mold.

Of course, making top-quality cannabis gummies requires a little more complexity. Temperature, pH, and various other factors need to be tuned just right. Otherwise you can wind up with a sloppy mess. But overall they’re easier to make than many types of edibles. Which means it’s not just consumers who love gummies—they’re also an attractive option for edibles producers as well.

When it comes to producing, let’s say chocolate bars, the amount of time and labor involved is exponentially greater than making gummies. Working with chocolate is a very hands-on process that requires training in the science of chocolate and pastry arts.

Unlike gummies, chocolate needs to be tempered, using precise temperature controls. By heating, cooling, and reheating the chocolate, the chocolate maker can create a product with a delicate composition, uniform structure, and well-rounded flavor, along with the expected shiny exterior.

As far as mass-production is concerned, an effective manufacturing set-up could produce tens of thousands more gummies in a day than one crafting fine chocolate bars.

But before you jump up to sweep the gummy market off its feet, there are several things to consider. Should you use flavor extracts, essential oils, or fresh fruit purée for your gummies? What about pectin vs. gelatin or agar? And what are the best flavor combinations?

Fruit purees vs. extracts for cannabis gummies

Like most things in life, there’s an easy way and a hard way when it comes to making gummies. Using extracts or essential oils may reduce your overall food costs, but by sacrificing flavor and quality you may be alienating a large portion of your customer base that is looking specifically for high-quality edibles using fresh ingredients.

Now, not all fruit purées are created equal. Most recipes will specify which brand of fruit purée to use for cannabis gummies, since the sugar and acid levels vary from fruit to fruit. A kilo of passionfruit purée sold by Boiron will need a different amount of sugar, glucose, citric acid, and pectin than the same product from Perfect Purée.

This may seem like a lot of extra work, but the end result will stand out from the crowd that uses extracts and essential oils. A vast majority of consumers today are looking for a higher-end experience and are willing to pay for it. Using fresh purées over extracts or oils provides a gummy full of healthy vitamins along with a dose of THC or CBD.

A healthier choice

Eaze’s 2022 report found that edibles ranked number one in marijuana purchases for every generation except for Gen X who, according to polls, prefer to vape their weed.

Of that crowd, Millennials represent the single largest cannabis customer base. They tend to be highly educated, and they know what they want when it comes to cannabis products. And they typically prefer products made with whole foods and healthy ingredients. In addition to vitamins and minerals from the fruit, gummies also contain way fewer calories per dose than other edibles.

So companies using fresh fruit purées in their gummies are more likely to attract the coveted 25-45 age demographic.

Pectin vs. agar

If you’ve ever made a homemade jam or marmalade, then you’re familiar with pectin, the gelling agent that gives jams and jellies their signature texture. For hundreds of years, pastry chefs have turned to pectin to create pâte de fruit, which are essentially very fancy gummies.

Pectin is a naturally occurring substance that exists in the cell walls of fruits and plants, helping to bind the cells together to allow the organism to grow. Traditional pectin only activates and gels in the presence of both sugar and acid—so it’s important to understand your formulas for making gummies.

Pectin is also naturally vegan (as opposed to gelatin, which is animal-derived) so it’s the preferred choice for making a product with mass appeal.

However, unlike flavorless gelatin, pectin may add some small amount of bitterness to the recipe. Combined with naturally bitter cannabinoids and terpenes, this might require additional bitterness management, depending on the overall flavor balance of your gummies.

Another gelling agent option is agar-agar. Agar is a plant-based gelatin derived from seaweed. And while it may seem like agar and pectin are similar, they produce dramatically different end results.

Due to its molecular structure, agar will continue to solidify over time, through a process called syneresis—which will squeeze out some of the incorporated liquid in your gummy, leaving a tough little agar chew covered in a sticky mess.

Agar gummies also have a less pleasant mouthfeel, generally speaking, and the flavor release is by far less than ideal when compared to pectin. Especially if you’re making them with real fruit purees, pectin is the ideal gelling agent for cannabis gummies.

Flavors

This is where the fun and creativity begins when it comes to making THC- or CBD-infused gummies. Deciding which fruit (or combination of fruits) to use as the flavoring means plenty of “quality control testing.”

The fruit purée market is chock full of amazing fruit flavors ready to use for making gummies, from standards like raspberry, orange, and strawberry, to tropical fruits like passionfruit, guava, and lychee.

If you happen to be using gelatin for your cannabis gummies, be wary of flavoring them with fresh pineapple as it contains an enzyme called bromelain. Bromelain (as well as papain in papaya) is a complex protein-digesting enzyme that will destroy the protein-derived gelatin.

If you must use gelatin for pineapple or papaya gummies, cooking the fruit or juice first will denature the bromelain enzyme, preventing it from breaking down the collagen in the gelatin and thereby allowing the gel to set.

Looking for flavor inspiration? Here’s 5 surprising cannabis gummy flavor combos that we think your consumers would love!

Blueberry | Chamomile | Lavender
Pineapple | Coconut | Black Tea
Blood orange | Passionfruit | Thyme
Strawberry | Olive oil | Tarragon
Sour Cherry | Lime | Mint

For more about making better cannabis gummies (with fruit puree or anything else) reach out and let us know what you’re working on.

Product Formulation Optimization #3

October 19, 2021 by Alan McClure

The Troublesome Yet Terrific Tortilla (Part 3)

In part 3 of our look at the troublesome yet terrific tortilla, following as it does from a general description of the tortilla quandary in part 1, and some specific details regarding the tortilla challenges anticipated in part 2, finally I’ll begin to explain how I approached the task of optimizing the formulation, or in simple terms, how I made the very best tortilla.

What Is “Best?”

As mentioned previously, I’ve already defined that I am speaking of wheat-flour-based tortillas; so my goal in optimizing a tortilla formulation is to produce the wheat-flour-based tortilla with the best organoleptic characteristics. It’s worth taking a moment to consider what I mean by “best.” In this case, I am considering only my own preferences, whether I’m talking about aroma, overall flavor, mouthfeel, or even appearance. However, if I were developing this tortilla for a regional restaurant chain, it would make sense to do consumer evaluation that includes a sample of the regular customers of that chain, and perhaps also consumers that the chain is trying to convert to customers. My specific preferences, for example, may or may not overlap well with those of the restaurant customers. But luckily, since the tortillas in question are for me, I can more simply consider my own preferences.

All Wheat-Flour Tortillas Are Not Created Equal.

Also, it is important for me to clarify that I want a tortilla that tastes great when fresh. I’m not at all concerned about storing the finished product on the shelf, or in the fridge or freezer. I want a tortilla that I can griddle now, eat, enjoy thoroughly, and then move on. If I were developing a tortilla for a grocery chain, I would have to reconsider this approach, because in that case the end consumer has little chance of buying the tortillas fresh and hot. They will need to be reheated out of necessity, and they will likely need to be able to remain free of mold for at least a week on the shelves, and perhaps longer. Such a tortilla would have characteristics that are dramatically different from the type I want to eat for my own enjoyment.

Are there Additional Constraints?

There are plenty of other details to consider. Do I want to work with ingredients available at the local grocery? Am I interested milling grain into flour? Does the tortilla need to be vegetarian? What types of equipment are available for processing and cooking the tortillas? And speaking of production constraints, while I’m willing to deal with dough that is a bit sticky or stiff and difficult to roll out in order to achieve a better tortilla, there is a limit to my patience. I don’t want to make my life 50% more difficult just to squeak in an extra 1% increase in improved mouthfeel. So, as I’m rating the various sensory characteristics of each tortilla, I can also consider rating things like dough stickiness, dough toughness, and perhaps overall workability.

Pulling Everything Together.

I’ve said that I want to optimize the formulation for a wheat-flour-based tortilla that is best according to my own preferences. I want to be able to make it at home with a 4’x4′ maple butcher block serving as the work surface, a wooden rolling pin, a 6-qt stand mixer, an induction range, a cast-iron skillet, and a spatula. I would also generally like to use ingredients that are readily available (e.g., King Arthur AP wheat flour, sea salt, and filtered tap water), but I’m willing to put in a little extra work to improve the quality of the added fat.

Ingredients.

For the fat in the tortillas, I’ll render my own lard from the backfat of locally raised hogs. As part of the rendering process, I’ll use a temperature high enough to brown the cracklings once they are void of fat, which adds additional roasted complexity to the lard’s flavor profile. At the end of the rendering process, I’ll also add some smoked bacon to give the lard a subtle smoky note. I will not be using plant-based oils in this recipe, as I know from experience that they have bland or off flavors in tortillas. I will also not be using baking powder. As mentioned in part 2, baking powder is quite a common ingredient in modern tortillas, but I would prefer to depend upon steam–from the added water–to leaven and lighten the texture of the tortillas. In my experience, the mouthfeel of the end product is better than when baking powder is used. So now I’ve clearly defined the constraints for this project. What’s next?

**Freshly griddled wheat-flour tortillas made with freshly rendered pork lard, filtered water, and sea salt**

A Product Optimization Experiment.

We now have to take our known constraints and design an experiment that will allow us to optimize the tortilla formulation. How should we proceed? One variable at a time? Often seen as the acronym OVAT, this is thought by most non-scientists to describe how experiments are run according to the scientific method. Actually, even some scientists believe this. But here’s the thing, it’s dead wrong. Even in a relatively simple food like our tortillas with only four ingredients (i.e., flour, water, lard, salt), changing the amount of one variable at a time, let’s say the flour, while holding all else constant, is likely to be, at best, an incredibly inefficient way to determine what the optimal tortilla recipe is, and at worst, will never find it at all. In short, OVAT has significant disadvantages. Arguably, the most important disadvantage is that important “interactions” usually exist in foods, and will be missed with the OVAT approach.

Interactions!

In this project, if we simplify for a moment to say that our only goal is to improve the flavor of the tortilla on a scale from 1-10, then any positive main effect would be one related to any of the individual ingredients that increases quality. For example, maybe more lard increases quality on average. That’s lard’s main effect. But what happens when water and lard are both present? Does water, in addition to having its own main effect on quality also impact the degree to which lard has a positive impact? If so, then that would be an interaction effect. It might be the case that with smaller amounts of water, lard is hugely positive in its impact, but with more water it makes a much smaller positive difference. It is immediately clear why interactions can cause huge problems with the OVAT approach; because if you only change one variable/ingredient at a time, you can’t determine if interactions exist. And guess what? Interactions almost always exist to some degree, and sometimes they are hugely influential. So what can we do about this?

Optimal Design of Experiments.

When the OVAT approach can’t be trusted to work, which is usually, instead we can rely on the considerable theory in the field of statistics that supports what is called “design of experiments,” along with modern computers and software, to produce an optimal experimental design. Such a design is able to help determine what the optimal formulation would be of a tortilla, again from the flavor quality standpoint defined above, but more than that, such a design even allows the experienced product development expert to determine the optimal formulation while considering several characteristics at the same time. This is sometimes called multiple objective optimization. How it does this is easier to show with an example than to explain in prose, so we’ll take a look at a tortilla-development optimal design in the final part of this series (part 4).

–Alan McClure

Product Formulation Optimization #2

September 28, 2021 by Alan McClure

The Troublesome Yet Terrific Tortilla (Part 2)

Continuing on with the product formulation optimization theme, using tortilla formulation specifically as an example, we dig in further. As a reminder, tortilla formulation is more complicated than it may at first appear. As I wrote previously:

“From the standpoint of the uninitiated, a tortilla seems a simple beast. As a plain product on its own there are no fillings or inclusions, no added flavors, swirls of color, or fancy shapes. Even the plastic bags in which they’re sold ten at a time are nothing special. But the phrase “deceptively simple” does exist for a reason. And one could reasonably argue that it was coined as a product formulation expert was doing some deep thinking about the common, yet commonly unimpressive, tortilla.”

In this recent post I also spoke about the two different types of tortillas (corn and wheat flour), and noted some of the complexities of both of them including nixtamalization in the case of corn tortillas, and the presence of gluten and necessary added fat in the case of the wheat flour tortillas. Clearly, when done well, both types of tortillas are fantastic, but my family was handed down a wheat flour tortilla tradition from my Mexican great grandmother Guadalupe Otila Macias, and since I was a wee child I’ve been truly mesmerized by this type.

Watching my grandmother mix and knead them by hand, roll them out with a flick or two of the wrist, and then bake them on top of a cast-iron griddle on the stove–the incredible smell–and then passing one steaming and blistered with flavor from hand to hand with nearly burnt fingertips, taking bites and smiling uncontrollably. These are some of the most powerful memories of my childhood. Why would I ever want to change a single detail in my original family recipe?

As I mentioned previously, wheat flour tortillas can be tricky because the gluten proteins in wheat (i.e., glutenin and gliadin) when hydrated, help to create a stretchy and springy dough that is notoriously hard to roll out. To produce a less tough and easier to roll tortilla, people traditionally added some amount of fat to the dough in the form of freshly rendered pork lard. The added lard reduces the overall gluten development, and the tortillas become more aromatic and the mouthfeel more tender and less chewy. And when everything is just right, the tortillas puff magically like perfect little pillows, making them even lighter in texture. But what about when everything isn’t just right?

tortillas freshly cooked — **Freshly griddled wheat-flour tortillas made with freshly rendered pork lard, filtered water, and sea salt**

The Baking Powder Bandage

The problem is that getting the ratio of ingredients just right can be very tricky. If it is even a bit off, or the griddle temperature is not optimal, or the tortilla maker is just not paying the right amount of attention, the tortillas can end up dense and unpleasant. The solution to this problem used by most is an addition of baking powder. It allows the tortilla maker a bit more flexibility in all of the important conditions. However, the texture of a baking-powder-risen tortilla is not quite the same as one without, and it has been written more than once by tortilla aficionados that the baking powder version is simply not as good.

The Vegetable Oil Blunder

Another problem is that as refined plant-based vegetable oils have become much cheaper, and good fatback from which to make lard has become less readily available in the marketplace, recipes have begun to call for either liquid oil or hydrogenated oil, also called shortening. These oil-based tortillas simply aren’t capable of tasting as good as those made from the roasted and rendered fat of flavorful hogs.

So, the modern homemade wheat-flour tortilla, which itself is scarce compared to the store-bought versions with little personality, is itself a shadow of its former glorious self. But if these changes to the modern tortilla have led to a poverty of quality, what is to be done about it? How can we possibly attempt to recreate a product formulation that most of us have never tasted?

I’ll explain how I approached this challenge in an effort to do just that. Stay tuned for más detalles in Part 3.

–Alan McClure

Product Formulation Optimization #1

September 15, 2021 by Alan McClure

The Troublesome Yet Terrific Tortilla (Part 1)

From the standpoint of the uninitiated, a tortilla seems a simple beast. As a plain product on its own there are no fillings or inclusions, no added flavors, swirls of color, or fancy shapes. Even the plastic bags in which they’re sold ten at a time are nothing special. But the phrase “deceptively simple” does exist for a reason. And one could reasonably argue that it was coined as a product formulation expert was doing some deep thinking about the common, yet commonly unimpressive, tortilla.

So where should we start to understand the product formulation challenge better? It’s often the case that the very best examples of foods are traditional ones. And certainly where tortillas are concerned, traditional versions are far better than the most familiar brands at the local grocer. For those who have had incredible tortillas, the kind that are calling out to be eaten, simply, steaming hot from the Mexican comal, fingers burning, we know this in our gut. But if one wants this beautiful experience far away from a Mexican market or abuela, is it even possible?

What is a tortilla anyway?

First, let’s simplify the issue. Tortillas come in two main types: corn- and wheat-flour-based. Corn tortillas are traditionally made from alkali-treated heirloom corn, called “nixtamal,” a Nahuatl term borrowed from the Aztec. This process, often referred to as nixtamalization, uses a relatively dilute solution of culinary lime, aka calcium hydroxide, in water to catalyze hydrolysis and conversion of various compounds in the corn kernels’ hull. This process makes the corn easier to digest, more nutritious, less likely to contain harmful mycotoxins, and most people would claim, myself included, more delicious. In fact, the flavor is so good, that traditional corn tortillas require nothing more than ground nixtamal, water, and bit of salt, to create a fabulous flat food fit for an Aztec king. But, as previously mentioned…

Corn is not the only way…

In northern Mexico and Texas, which also used to be part of Mexico, where wheat flour was more readily available, tortillas made from this grain were more common. And because the proteins in wheat, when hydrated, help to create a stretchy and springy dough that is notoriously hard to roll out, people added some amount of fat to the dough in the form of freshly rendered pork lard. The lard reduced the overall gluten development, making the thin disks of dough easier to roll out, and moreover, made the tortillas more aromatic and the mouthfeel more tender than chewy. And when the proportions of flour:water:lard are just right, the tortillas puff magically, making them lighter and more tender in texture, and giving the surface of the tortilla a deliciously mottled appearance, due to light charring of the steam-puffed pockets on the surface, thereby creating even more flavor–Maillard reaction pathways y’all.

Now, I’m a sucker for both types of tortilla, and I’ve made countless batches of both, nixtamalizing my own corn, experimenting with many of the countless heirloom Mexican varieties, and for the wheat tortillas, rendering my own lard, getting the roasted, almost smoky pork flavor just right. But I have to admit that having grown up with wheat flour tortillas in my family, a cultural contribution of my Mexican maternal great-grandmother, Guadalupe Otila Macias, who emigrated to Texas as a young girl, I have spent considerably more time thinking about, making, and certainly eating wonderful wheat flour tortillas. And I can assure you that even with four ingredients, they are tricky to perfect, or more technically, to optimize the product formulation.

But I’ll tell you what; recently I did just that. Stay tuned for más detalles in Part 2.

–Alan McClure

Good, Better, Best?

August 7, 2021 by Alan McClure

Sage advice from the product developer:

How good is good enough? Is it just fine to be as good as the competition, or does a product always need to be even better to compete? And what if better isn’t even good enough? Developing award-winning products that utterly destroy the competition means aiming for the best possible version of a product. With all of the choice in the marketplace these days, it’s the only reasonable approach to ensure sales superiority and passion for the product on the part of consumers, tastemakers, and influencers. But how does one achieve the very best?

The little-known hard truth is that creativity, inspiration, passion and dedication simply aren’t enough. Every single product has an infinite number of possible iterations. Tweaking one ingredient at a time based on experience may give you a better product than the one before, but is it actually the very best? Without following well constructed optimally designed product development experiments, the answer is almost certainly “No.” Luckily for us, such experiments make the product development process more precise and more efficient, saving time and money while producing not just a better product, but the very best!

-Alan McClure