Pharmacist hoping to convert berry waste into new health supplement
CBC News | Posted: June 1, 2017 11:39 PM | Last Updated: June 1, 2017
Pharmacist hopes to have usable powdered extract by end of month
A Fredericton pharmacist and his partner are hoping to turn extracts from berry waste into a valuable health supplement.
Dan Pike is working with the New Brunswick Community College in Grand Falls to isolate anti-oxidants from blueberry and haskap berry remnants left over from the juicing process.
It's believed anti-oxidants like anthrocyanin protect human cells from damage as they age.
Both blueberries and lesser-known haskap berries are bursting with anthrocyanins and Pike said he hopes to isolate the anti-oxidants and market them in capsule form to treat everything from cardiovascular disease to diabetes.
Both blueberries and lesser-known haskap berries are bursting with anthrocyanins and Pike said he hopes to isolate the anti-oxidants and market them in capsule form to treat everything from cardiovascular disease to diabetes.
"So this would be where the extraction would take place. They would be taking the raw material — the haskap and blueberry pumice or the skins or the whole blueberry and essentially extracting the...anthrocyanins that have high anti-oxidant properties and turning them to a more solid entity that can be incorporated to ingredients and different products down the road."
Getting the beneficial elements isolated from the berries is the biggest challenge. Scientists at CCNB in Grand Falls have been working on a solution and Pike thinks they're close to cracking it.
Identifying products
"We already know blueberries have high anti-oxidant properties. In actual fact haskap berries have a much higher anti-oxidant profile so what we are doing is identifying what is giving those anti-oxidants properties and identifying the key ingredients or entities within the haskap berries, isolating them, purifying them and then incorporating them into our products," said Pike.
Blueberries are a $30 million a year business in the province. If Pike and his partner are successful with this latest enterprise, it could give growers another welcome source of revenue for their crops.
"With this project one of the potential benefits to blueberry farmers is when they turn blueberries into juice there's leftovers, or skins or pumice which ultimately is waste product," he said. "So we can actually use that pumice or skins in these extractions."
Pike said he estimates he'll have a usable powdered extract of anthrocyanin by the end of June.
The next stop will be Health Canada for approval to make the product available to the public.