Anthocyanins (mixed berry)

This is an anthocyanin concentrate drawn from more than one berry species rather than a single-botanical extract. The working source set is bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus L.), blackcurrant (Ribes nigrum L.), elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.) and black chokeberry or aronia (Aronia melanocarpa (Michx.) Elliott), and the species ratio is fixed to the buyer's brief and printed on every certificate of analysis. Chemically the material is a family, not a molecule: the aglycones cyanidin, delphinidin, petunidin, peonidin and malvidin, each occurring as 3-O-glucosides, galactosides, arabinosides and rutinosides in proportions that follow the species mix. Total anthocyanins are expressed against cyanidin-3-O-glucoside chloride, kuromanin chloride, CAS 7084-24-4, C21H21ClO11, MW 484.84. Free aglycones are held low and cross-checked against cyanidin chloride, CAS 528-58-5, C15H11ClO6, MW 322.69, because a raised aglycone figure means either degradation in process or an anthocyanin that did not come from berries. The assay and the identity test are separate problems, and on a multi-species article the second one is harder. Total monomeric anthocyanins are determined by the pH-differential method, the procedure collaboratively studied by Lee, Durst and Wrolstad in the Journal of AOAC International 2005;88(5):1269-78 and adopted as AOAC Official Method 2005.02, reported as cyanidin-3-O-glucoside equivalents. That assay is a colour measurement and it cannot tell one anthocyanin source from another, which matters because the berry anthocyanin trade carries a long adulteration record: black rice, black soybean hull and purple sweet potato extracts all read as anthocyanin, and synthetic azo dyes such as amaranth read as anthocyanin too. Because a single-species HPLC fingerprint is unavailable by definition here, control rests on three things instead: the declared species ratio, an HPLC-DAD or HPLC-MS anthocyanin profile that must reconcile with that ratio, and a synthetic dye screen on every lot. Buyers who need a species-specific pharmacopoeial fingerprint should purchase a single-botanical extract instead; this article is not a substitute for one and is not sold as one. Anthocyanins are the least stable class of pigment a formulator is likely to handle. Colour is pH-dependent, red below about pH 3 and a dull blue-grey above pH 5, and the molecules degrade with heat, light, oxygen, sulphite and ascorbate-metal systems, so the powder ships in light-proof packaging and formulation guidance goes with it. Two commercial points worth settling before a purchase order. First, sulphites: berry processing streams can carry sulphur dioxide, and above 10 mg/kg it is a declarable allergen in the EU and UK, so Thovek supplies this material with no added sulphites and states SO2 on the specification. Second, intended use: an anthocyanin preparation traded as the food colour E 163 is a different regulatory and tariff article from the same powder traded as a supplement ingredient, and the commercial documents have to match the intent. The extract is vegan and vegetarian, with no bovine, porcine, marine or insect input and no EU 14 or FDA 9 allergen material; any carrier is named with its botanical origin. This record describes composition and food-technology function only and makes no therapeutic or disease claim.