Some extracts from Q3-2025 New Chemical-Free Guar Sterilization Process: Company xyz (disclosed in the report) recently announced the development of a new sterilization process for guar that is free from any bactericidal aids or pH regulators. The new process yields very low plate count guar gum, <100 and Y/M<50. Psyllium husk is also being offered utilizing this new process. Both products are prone to high bacteria and yeast and mold counts. No word yet on the premium for these products. The announcement can be found at https://tinyurl.com/*** (correct link in the report). If commercially successful, one can expect other suppliers of guar and psyllium are likely to follow suit.

AI in Hydrocolloid Safety Evaluation: Another promising application of AI lies in its ability to accelerate one of the more time-consuming aspects of hydrocolloid research: evaluating the extensive body of safety studies and regulatory literature. Reviewing and synthesizing decades of feeding trials, toxicology reports, and safety assessments is an ideal task for AI-driven tools. Analyzing and summarizing reams of feeding studies and safety test data on hydrocolloids is ideally suited to AI. A custom AI platform to conduct such an exercise is www.elicit.com, which is described by different evaluators as follows:

Elicit is an advanced AI-driven tool designed to streamline literature reviews. Whether you’re a seasoned academic or a novice researcher.

Elicit is an AI tool that is especially useful for researchers. Elicit combines multiple powerful features into a single platform. You can use it to easily search for and find relevant research papers, generate structured summaries of research papers in a table format, upload papers and instantly extract key data and insights from them, and many more.

IMR has subscribed to the Elicit service and queried the platform on the safety evaluation of all hydrocolloids covered in The Quarterly Review of Food Hydrocolloids. Not surprisingly, none of the hydrocolloids were deemed 'unsafe at the use levels prescribed'.

Carrageenan Reasonableness Test: A 2020 research study estimated that average daily carrageenan consumption has increased from roughly 40–100 mg/day in the 1980s to about 250 mg/day in 2020—an overall rise of approximately 250% to 625%. In simpler terms, intake of foods containing carrageenan has multiplied by 2.5 to 6.25 times over that period.

To illustrate, if one serving of ice cream or one liter of chocolate milk provided about 100 mg of carrageenan per day in the 1980s, today’s reported levels would imply that consumers are eating 2.5 to 6.25 servings of ice cream—or drinking 2.5 to 6.25 liters of chocolate milk—every day.

To put these numbers in perspective: · Ice cream typically contains around 0.01% carrageenan. Reaching 100 mg/day would require consuming about 1 kilogram of ice cream per day, every day of the year. · Chocolate milk has a similar concentration, about 0.01% carrageenan. Achieving 100 mg/day would mean drinking roughly 1 liter daily, 365 days per year.

Thus, moving from an estimated 40–100 mg/day to 250 mg/day corresponds to an increase from about 1 kg (or 1 liter) per day to 2.5–6.25 kg (or liters) per day—sustained over time. If someone were actually consuming that much ice cream (12–15% milk fat, 20–25% sugar) or chocolate milk (3.5% milk fat, 8–12% sugar) every day, carrageenan exposure would be the least of their dietary concerns.

Another way to view it is by looking at total U.S. usage. With a population of 345 million people and an estimated 2024 carrageenan consumption of 12,000 metric tons, subtracting pet food applications leaves roughly 10,000 metric tons for human consumption. That equates to an average intake of approximately 29 mg per person per day, which is an order of magnitude lower than the 250 mg/day reported in the 2020 estimate.

Regulatory Uncertainty: As if the tariff back 'n forth in the US was not confusing enough, a major overhaul of the GRAS system is on the way at the FDA. At least one hydrocolloid would be dropped in a regulatory grey zone, during the lawsuits contesting some of the proposed changes by the current administration.

The above are only a small sample of the detailed and strategic information provided in these custom reports which are each 50-80 pages long. The table of contents for Q3-2025 is found HERE.