Streamlining homogenization of confectionery treats

Food safety and determination of the quality of food products are key components within food testing. The detection and quantification of specific elements, such as heavy metals, pesticides, microbes, or their unwanted by-products, requires thorough and uniform homogenization, which can be challenging for foods such as confectionary treats. There is an immense variety of treats within snack foods that exhibit a range in toughness, strength, consistency, or stickiness. Cannabinoid-infused confectionary treats, commonly known as “edibles”, are growing in popularity for their recreational and medicinal purposes as an alternative method of cannabinoid delivery. In this case, the quantitative measurement of the working concentrations of active components such as CBD and THC are important to assess from both a research, safety, and regulatory perspective. Whatever the analyte in question that would undergo either chemical or molecular analysis, researchers need access to starting material that is homogenized as an initial step. In this application note, processing parameters for brownies, chocolates, gummies, and cookies in methanol as a diluent were determined. Homogenization was confirmed via visual inspection, where all sample types tested were processed in ~ 2 minutes. Within food testing, where throughput can be a bottleneck, an Omni Bead Ruptor homogenizer allows simultaneous processing of multiple samples to help expedite sample prep workflow.

For research use only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.