Balchem products
Encapsulation technology is one of Balchem’s core businesses. Unlike monogastric animals, ruminants are characterised by a more complex digestive tract and therefore their nutrition presents greater difficulties. In fact, the rumen environment can degrade some nutrients including Choline, Lysine, Methionine and Niacin. Balchem’s patented encapsulation technology allows the nutrients mentioned above to move beyond the rumen, allowing them to pass through into the intestines and consequently be absorbed.
The key to developing an effective encapsulate is to create a product that is not only resistant to rumen degradation, but is also able to release the active ingredient in the intestine so that it can be absorbed by the animal. The combination of rumen and intestinal availability is defined as the bioavailability of a protected rumen product, a concept that expresses the true quality of an encapsulated product.
In order to be highly bioavailable, an encapsulated product must be able to guarantee three aspects:
- Resistance: meaning the ability of an encapsulated product to keep its structure intact during handling, transformation or processing and storage processes.
- : the primary function of encapsulation technology is to protect the active ingredient from degradation caused by rumen bacteria.
- Intestinal digestibility: effective encapsulation technology must be able to resist not only damage caused by processing and transformation, but also the attack of rumen bacteria, to ultimately guarantee high digestibility of the nutrient in the intestine.
