Bionade – A Unique Beverage Offering By Producing Gluconic Acid Through Fermentation

A German church gate. Germany, home of Bionade.
Image by Peter H from Pixabay

I recently tried some beverages from Bionade GmbH  which are rather unique and deserved their own post. They are not soft drinks for a start ! Not only are all the ingredients used in the beverage organic – a plus point for all those exercising their ‘green’ credentials, the products are also non-alcoholic and yet produced by fermentation. Not only that, the products have been created in the spirit of the purity laws in Germany which has always been a noted quality indicator. The products have their own category under the Food labelling regulations in the area of non-alcoholic refreshment drinks and are listed as:-

“Organically produced through the fementation of natural raw materials”

The flavour’s acidity is derived from gluconic acid which lends a much milder tartness to the drink than say lactic acid or acetic acid. Various mineral gluconate salts are also created which are sourced from just the water. The product is naturally carbonated and each variety is flavoured with its own fruit and herbs. The flavours are elderberry, lychee, various herbs and a ginger-orange combination. My favourite is the lychee because of its delicate, characteristic notes but all the products have quite subtle tones to them. They also commissioned cocktail recipes to best use the flavours on offer. There are no added colours or preservatives and due to its unique process, the sugar content is 30% less sugar and so fewer calories than other soft drinks.

The process of manufacture is proprietary information and there is no indication of which organisms might be used in the fermentation. The fermentation also produces flavours unique to the process such as the furanones (Pickering et al., 2001). The properties and production of gluconic acid were reviewed recently (Ramachandran et al., 2006) and are produced by a range of organisms although one of the most interesting is Gluconobacter oxydans. To obtain the appropriate brix-acid ratio, organic sugar is added to obtain the right balance and bring out the flavours. The products are packaged in glass with crown-cork caps. What grabbed my interest was the uniqueness of the products, especially the role of gluconic acid in the flavour profile and the manner in which it was created. The conversion of glucose to gluconic acid to produce reduced-alcohol wines has been an industrial process for some years using glucose oxidase (GOX) (Pickering et al., 1999).

Its worth noting that Bionade has similarities to kombucha. The taste perception which is very fresh is remarkably similar.

References

Ramachandran S., Fontanille P., Pandey A., and Larroche C. (2006) Gluconic acid: properties, applications and microbial production. Food Tech. Biotech. 44(2), pp. 185–195.
Pickering, G.J., Heatherbell, D.A. and Barnes, M.F. (1999a) The production of reduced- alcohol wine using glucose oxidase treated juice. Part I. Composition. Am. J. Enol. Vitic., 50(3) pp. 291- 298.
Pickering, G.J., Heatherbell, D.A. and Barnes, M.F. 2001. GC-MS analysis of reduced- alcohol Muller-Thurgau wine produced using glucose oxidase-treated juice. Lebensm-Wiss. Technol., 34(2) pp. 89- 94.

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