Flapjacks containing functional apple products to reduce fat and sugar demonstrated at:

1) Urdd Eisteddfod- Llandovery (29 May-3 June 2023)
2) Royal Welsh Show - Builth Wells (24-27 July 2023)
3) National Eisteddfod of Wales -Boduan (5-12 August 2023)

Apples are very healthy and plentiful food source. Apples are rich in fibre, anti-oxidants and complex carbohydrates that help maintain a healthy weight, support digestion and reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, asthma and some cancers. Apples are also anti-inflammatory, helping to protect against muscle damage during exercise. When apple juice and cider is made, the most nutritionally rich part of the apple – the flesh and skin - is usually discarded.
Bangor University is collaborating with Welsh food and sustainable technology entrepreneurs The Pudding Compartment and Pennotec (Pennog Ltd) to make healthier, food ingredients from the pressed apple ‘pomace’ that is thrown away by drinks manufacturers. These ingredients – apple fibre and apple syrup - can replace up to 40% of the fat and sugar in whole foods - reducing food calories by up to 30% without compromising taste and texture. Once they can be supplied to food manufacturers across Wales, these clean label, vegan-friendly ingredients will help deliver targets for reducing both child and adult obesity and support Welsh Government wellbeing policy, encouraging heathier lifestyles in communities across Wales.
We’re conducting a taste test today with apple-flavoured flapjacks. One flapjack contains apple fibre and syrup and contains 20% fewer calories and half the sugar and saturated fats of the other.
Which do you prefer or do you have no strong preference?
Developing the calorie-reducing apple ingredients has involved multi-disciplinary collaboration between Bangor University staff and students and the Welsh industrial partners:
• Staff and students from the Psychology Department helped develop consumer taste testing trials and surveys - including many that took place in Primary schools across Gwynedd - which showed that healthier versions of the foods we enjoy can play a part in reducing childhood and adult obesity and improve health and wellbeing in Wales and beyond.

• The apple pomace used to make the ingredients was supplied by Anglesey-based cider and apple juice manufacturer Jaspels. Both businesses believe strongly in reducing food miles by sourcing ingredients locally and the Geography Department staff and a Masters researcher investigated how the ‘green’ credentials of the apple ingredients would influence consumers and food service outlets to buy the product.

• Research staff at the BioComposites Centre, helped develop the apple fibre product by adapting techniques used on a large scale in wood pulp manufacture to make apple dietary fibre swell up in water and fill the space in foods when fats and sugar are removed.
If you’d like to learn more about healthy apple ingredients please go to www.milacel.com
If you have enjoyed the taste of the 20% reduced calorie apple flapjacks, think about how you could help to take this fabulous food invention of apple fibre and apple syrup ingredients from orchards and cider makers in Wales to the world.