Industry Challenges:

The core challenge facing the food industry today lies in balancing consumer demand for clean labels and natural, healthy options with stringent stability requirements in complex applications. Whether it is ensuring suspension in plant-based beverages, achieving a smooth texture in yogurt, or maintaining water retention in low-sugar baked goods, food-grade sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) must deliver exceptional processing tolerance, storage stability, and taste-optimizing capabilities – all while guaranteeing absolute safety-to meet the diverse and reliable quality demands of food innovation.

It is precisely to address these challenges that Fortune Biotech has developed high-performance food grade sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), leveraging cutting-edge technology and an unwavering commitment to quality. Our food grade CMC is a water soluble polymer derived from natural plant fibers (such as cotton linters or wood pulp) through chemical modification. As an internationally recognized, safe, and efficient food additive (INS No. E466), it is widely used in the modern food industry as a thickener, stabilizer, emulsifier, binder, and moisture-retention agent, enhancing product texture, mouthfeel, stability, and shelf life through its outstanding functionality.

Our products are manufactured under the most stringent quality and food safety management systems (including FSSC 22000 and ISO 9001), ensuring every batch delivers ultra high purity, consistent performance, and reliable safety, making Fortune Biotech your ideal partner for food innovation and quality enhancement.

Application Cases:

Case 1: Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts

Challenge: Ice cream is prone to developing ice crystals during storage and transportation, resulting in a coarse, icy texture. Additionally, rapid melting negatively impacts the consumer experience.

CMC Application:

Ice Crystal Inhibition: As a highly effective stabilizer, CMC adsorbs onto the surface of tiny ice crystals during freezing. Through steric hindrance, it prevents their aggregation and growth, resulting in a fine, smooth texture.

Viscosity Enhancement and Texture Improvement: CMC significantly increases the viscosity of the mix, improving melt-resistance and shape retention, while imparting a rich, creamy mouthfeel.

Overrun Increase: It helps stabilize incorporated air bubbles, achieving a more desirable overrun and a lighter texture.

Recommended Dosage: 0.1% – 0.3% (of total weight).

Case 2: Juices & Plant-Based Protein Beverages

Challenge: Juices containing pulp are susceptible to sedimentation. Plant-based proteins (e.g., in soy or almond milk) can flocculate, precipitate, and experience whey separation under acidic conditions or during storage.

CMC Application:

Suspension and Stabilization: CMC forms a microscopic network within the beverage. Its thickening action effectively slows the sedimentation of insoluble solids like pulp or protein, ensuring uniform suspension and consistent appearance.

Protein Protection: The anionic charges on CMC molecules interact with protein particles, preventing their aggregation and precipitation at their isoelectric point or during heating via electrostatic repulsion and steric hindrance, significantly enhancing stability.

Texture Enhancement: It provides a smooth, full body, compensating for the thin mouthfeel often associated with low-sugar or low-fat beverages.

Recommended Dosage: 0.08% – 0.25% (of total weight).

Case 3: Baked Goods and Noodle Products

Challenge: Baked products like bread and cakes can stale quickly, becoming dry and hard, which shortens shelf life. Noodle products (e.g., instant noodles, dried noodles) may break easily during processing, become sticky, and lack desired chewiness.

CMC Application:

Moisture Retention and Anti-Staling (Bread/Cake): CMC’s strong hydrophilicity helps retain water in the dough or batter, resulting in a softer, moister crumb and effectively delaying starch retrogradation, thereby extending softness and shelf life.

Strengthening and Improving Slipperiness (Noodles): CMC enhances the gluten network, improving noodle toughness and elasticity, reducing breakage during processing, and yielding a more chewy, non-sticky, and clear-soup result after cooking.

Reducing Oil Uptake (Fried Noodles): CMC can form a protective film on the noodle surface during frying, effectively reducing oil absorption for a healthier, less greasy product.

Recommended Dosage: 0.1% – 0.4% (based on flour weight).

Case 4: Sauces, Dressings and Salad Dressings

Challenge: Sauces (e.g., ketchup, BBQ sauce, oyster sauce) can experience syneresis (water separation) during storage, affecting appearance. Emulsified systems like salad dressings risk phase separation. Product consistency directly impacts cling and user experience.

CMC Application:

Thickening and Bodying: As an efficient thickener, CMC rapidly increases viscosity, providing ideal consistency and flow properties for easy spreading, pouring, and dipping. Its pseudoplasticity allows easy dispensing under shear while maintaining structure at rest.

Water Binding and Stabilization: CMC’s strong hydration capacity binds free water, effectively preventing syneresis due to temperature changes or gravity, significantly extending shelf life and appearance stability.

Emulsion Stabilization (especially Salad Dressings): In oil-water emulsions, CMC helps coat oil droplets and increases the aqueous phase viscosity, preventing droplet coalescence and phase separation through steric hindrance and reduced droplet mobility.

Recommended Dosage: 0.2% – 0.8% (of total weight).

Case 5: Yogurt and Fermented Dairy Products

Challenge: Yogurt, especially stirred and drinkable types, is highly susceptible to whey separation (syneresis) during storage and transport, affecting uniformity and consumer acceptance. Smooth, fine texture is also crucial for quality perception.

CMC Application:

Preventing Whey Separation: Under acidic conditions (pH around 4.0-4.6), anionic CMC interacts electrostatically with positively charged casein particles, forming a stable complex that helps prevent protein aggregation at the isoelectric point, thereby effectively inhibiting syneresis.

Improving Texture & Mouthfeel: CMC contributes to a more stable, finer gel network, yielding a smoother, more viscous body with enhanced creaminess and reduced graininess, significantly improving sensory qualities.

Recommended Dosage: 0.1% – 0.35% (of total weight).

Case 6: Meat Products (e.g., Sausages, Meatballs, Restructured Steaks)

Challenge: Meat products lose significant moisture during processing (especially heating/cooking) due to protein denaturation, reducing yield and causing a dry, tough texture. Improving texture, elasticity, and sliceability is also desired.

CMC Application:

Powerful Water Binding and Yield Increase: As an excellent water binder, CMC strongly hydrates, forming a gel network that physically “locks in” moisture and juices, significantly reducing losses during heating, potentially increasing yield by 5%-15%, and improving juiciness.

Texture Improvement and Binding: CMC increases batter viscosity for easier forming. It improves tenderness, springiness, and chewiness in the final product. For restructured meats, it enhances binding between pieces, improving cohesion and sliceability.

Recommended Dosage: 0.2% – 0.6% (of total meat batter weight).

Case 7: Icings, Fillings and Jams

Challenge: Icings on pastries can become sticky or crack due to moisture migration. High-sugar fillings and jams are prone to sucrose recrystallization (“graining”) during storage, resulting in a coarse, sandy texture.

CMC Application:

Controlling Moisture Migration & Film Formation: In icings, CMC controls moisture evaporation and can form a thin, transparent film, promoting rapid set, a dry non-sticky surface, and a soft interior.

Inhibiting Sugar Crystallization: In jams and high-sugar fillings, CMC molecules adsorb onto sucrose crystal nuclei, inhibiting their growth and preventing “graining,” maintaining a smooth, fine texture.

Providing Good Spreadability: CMC provides ideal viscosity and spreadability for fillings and jams, facilitating industrial processing and consumer use.

Recommended Dosage: 0.3% – 1.0% (of total weight).