In these times of clean labelling, naturalness and sustainability, more than ever before fruit is in demand as a trendy ingredient. In a press workshop called “Snackification meets blueberry” at the new refurbished Ingredients Technology Center in Hamburg, Bösch Boden Spies demonstrated its new guiding principle as an import and innovations agency.

By Alfons Strohmaier

Michael Rund has worked for Hamburg-based ingre­dients specialist Bösch Boden Spies for nearly 28 years. “But dried fruit was never so much in ­demand or as exciting of a trend as it has ­become recently”, enthuses the ­experienced manager. While dried apricots, plums, raisins and more have always belonged to the standard retail product range, they were previously viewed more as a reliable, if somewhat boring, segment. This has now changed completely. Fruits in dried form, as puree and paste, juice or deep-frozen are now providing ­retail and food product manufacturers, ­including confectionery and snack companies, with innumerable new opportunities to utilise them as vitamin-rich true top performers.

The family-run com­pany founded in 1913 nowadays ­operates under the motto “360° food solutions – We keep reinventing food” as an import and innovations agency. With this move, Bösch Boden Spies is transforming ­itself from one of the leading raw fruit material suppliers for the European food products ­industry into a full-­service agency working together with customers to develop customised ­application and marketing concepts.

This is also evident in the com­pany’s executive management staff. Michael Rund has handed off the ­responsibility for distribution and sales of the dried fruits and nuts to ­industry and to the retail sector to Dr Philipp Stradtmann, who started at Bösch Boden Spies at the beginning of June. In addition to his responsib­ilities for the Logistics Department, Michael Rund will now also concentrate fully as the company‘s Managing Director on the further development of its product portfolio and supply strategy in direct responsibility for the Product Application & Development and the Marketing & Business Development departments.

During the aforementioned trade press workshop at the newly opened ­Ingredients Technology Center (ITC) in Hamburg city, Rund explained, “Our focus is on products with outstanding functionalities”. He added, “Along with comprehensive service for know-how and networking, we also stand for fairness, transparency and lasting partnership.” Bösch Boden Spies works as an exclusive partner ­together with 26 producers on five continents. Many of these are leaders in their sectors, including Ocean Spray, Blue Diamond, Sunsweet, Sun-Maid and the company Oxford Wild Blueberries in Canada. Together, they create new processes and technologies such as the sophis­ticated, complicated process of drying of wild blueberries, highlighted at the press workshop.

At the beginning of the workshop, Viviane Alsmeier, Junior Market and Business Development Manager, reported on mega­trends such as clean labelling, well-being and mini-meals which have resulted in enormous growth for fruit snacks and nuts. ­Under the supervision of Product Appli­cation & Development Head Kay Schumacher, the workshop participants used dried wild Canadian blueberries to create an airy, light bar and a crunchy fruit preparation for ­yogurt, based on frozen blueberries.