Spinach-flavored chocolate waiting to enter food market

Senior year students Berna Tulukoğlu, Merve Kurtuluş, Sara Şenkaya and Rida Seçilmişoğlu of the Department of Food Engineering at Sakarya University have produced chocolates with spinach, cranberry and pollen as part of a project overseen by Assistant Professor Omca Demirkol and academic İnci Cerit. The products, which are prepared for use in the chocolate industry, were displayed at the İzmir Food R & D Project Market, organized by the Aegean Exporters Associations.

Speaking on behalf of the innovative team, Tulukoğlu said they were working on a creative project for their thesis and decided to focus on chocolate. She explained that they concentrated on natural colorants that are not produced in Turkey. Stressing that they have been successful with colorants obtained from spinach, cranberry and pollen following numerous experiments in the laboratory, she said: "Children especially love colorful chocolates. However, parents are worried about the colorants. The chocolates we produced put these worries to rest, as they are colored with natural ingredients." The creative team uses powdered spinach to give a green color to white chocolate and cranberry and pollen to make pink and yellow chocolate. They are also able to manufacture chocolate with different shades of pink by using bitter chocolate and cranberries. "By using these ingredients, we are also able to increase the antioxidant feature of the chocolate," Tulukoğlu noted, adding, "Besides these pluses, the chocolates get credit with their taste."

Tulukoğlu expressed her surprise that their thesis has caused a much greater stir in the industry than they anticipated and reported that their products were chosen from among 450 food projects to be displayed in the İzmir Food R & D Project Market. She added that many entrepreneurs in the industry are interested in their projects.

Emphasizing their expectation of support for their project, Tulukoğlu continued: "We are working to develop our chocolates in an industrial environment. Our biggest dream is that our products will find their place on shelves and are introduced to consumers one day. We believe that they will be in high demand once they are introduced to the market."