Ceapro Inc. announced the publication of data from its functional beverage formulation study in the Journal of Functional Foods in a an article titled, “Development of an orange-flavoured functional beverage formulated with beta-glucan (BG) and coenzyme Q10-impregnated beta-glucan (iBG).” The coenzyme Q10-impregnated beta glucan functional beverage project was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Feral Temelli’s team at the University of Alberta, along with Ceapro researchers and was co-funded by Alberta Innovates (formerly Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions) and Ceapro Inc. Dr. Temelli presented positive data from the first phase of this project in May 2017 at the 16th European Meeting on Supercritical Fluid Technologies held in Lisbon, Portugal. The objectives of the study were to: (a) develop a formulation of a functional beverage incorporating beta glucan (BG) or coenzyme Q10 impregnated beta glucan (iBG) and evaluate its physicochemical properties, (b) to determine if there is an overall sensory difference between beverages prepared with BG and iBG, (c) to evaluate the sensory quality and acceptability of the beverage formulated with iBG in comparison to a commercial product using a consumer panel, and (d) to evaluate the effect of health information on the overall acceptance of the beverage by consumers. The Company formulated an orange-flavored functional beverage with its value driver, oat BG powder or with iBG, sweetened with stevia extract, to demonstrate the potential use of BG or iBG as a functional ingredient in beverage formulations. The BG and iBG (CoQ10 loading 3.3%) were obtained utilizing Ceapro’s proprietary pressurized gas-expanded (PGX) liquid technology. The beverage was successfully developed and was evaluated by a consumer sensory panel. Ideal profile method was applied to evaluate the overall consumer acceptance of the beverages prepared with 0.2% iBG. Principal component analysis was performed to evaluate the product space among 0% iBG beverage, 0.2% iBG beverage, Vitaminwater® and ideal product. The addition of citric acid had no effect on the viscosity of beverages prepared with either iBG or BG. There was no detectable difference between iBG and BG beverages, indicating that the presence of 3.3% (w/w) CoQ10 did not introduce any effect on the sensory attributes of the functional beverages. Also, the addition of 0.2% iBG had no effect on any of the sensory attributes evaluated other than thickness when compared with the 0% iBG beverage. Providing health information regarding the ingredients yielded a positive overall acceptance for the 0.2% iBG beverage. The Company plans to further improve the formulation by assessing the use of other sweeteners and flavors and optimizing the concentration of citric acid in the future to satisfy the sensory expectations of the target group of consumers. Overall, the potential use of both PGX-processed BG and iBG as nutraceutical ingredients in functional beverages was demonstrated in this study.