ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE September 2025 31 STABILITY: A CRITICAL CHALLENGE FOR BOTANICAL FUNCTIONALITY During feed manufacturing, steps like pelleting, extrusion, or drying expose ingredients to thermal and mechanical stress. Additionally, long-term storage and exposure to oxygen can cause oxidative degradation of sensitive actives. These processes can lead to loss of structural integrity, reduced bioactivity, and ultimately, diminished performance outcomes. Close the Gap Between Botanical Potential and Performance This degradation not only compromises the intended functional effect (e.g. supporting gut integrity or immune response) but can also result in inconsistent product performance and economic loss for feed manufacturers and livestock producers. Ensuring stability through production and delivery is therefore essential to harness the full benefits of botanicals. At MartinBauer Animal Nutrition, we aim to close this gap between potential and performance. By investigating the resilience of selected botanical extracts under real-world feed processing and storage conditions, we provide insight into how to preserve bioactivity and ensure reliable, science-based application of botanicals in animal nutrition. SIMULATING REAL-WORLD CONDITIONS In an in-house study, three botanicals shown in Figure 1 were evaluated for the stability of their key bioactives under different stress conditions. A blend of their extracts (1% turmeric, 1.5% green tea, 1.5% olive leaves) was incorporated into a simplified feed matrix composed of pea protein (14%), waxy corn starch (16.5%), fibers (1.5%), rapeseed oil (7.5%), and water (56.5%). The bioactive markers in Table 1 were selected to investigate degradation. EXPERIMENTAL SETUPS To simulate practical challenges in feed manufacturing and storage, the feed matrix was tested under three conditions: 1. Multifactorial stress test Samples were subjected to combinations of temperature (room temperature, pasteurization 100 °C for 2 minutes, sterilization 121 °C for 3 minutes), pH levels (5 and 7), and light exposure over 48 hours to simulate 1 year shelf-life conditions. 2. Extrusion test The matrix was processed at 110 °C and 5 bar to assess thermal stability under pressure with a highshear double twin extruder in pilot scale at 3 kg/h product output. 3. Oxidative stability test The feed was stored in a sealed chamber with pure oxygen at 700 kPa and 100 °C. Induction time (defined as 10% pressure drop) was measured to assess antioxidative potential. Extract Active ingredient Content (% w/w) Table 1. Content of key phytogenic ingredients in selected extracts. Green tea Olive Turmeric 43.6 10.5 85.6 Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) Oleuropein Curcumin TEA TURMERIC Camellia sinensis Curcuma longa OLIVE LEAVES Olea europaea Oleuropein Catechine Curcumin Figure 1. Tea (Camellia sinensis), turmeric (Curcuma longa), and olive leaves (Olea europaea) with the molecular structure of their main bioactive compound
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