Bilberry Extract (Anthocyanins)

Bilberry extract is made from the ripe fruit of Vaccinium myrtillus L. (family Ericaceae), the European bilberry or whortleberry. It is not the cultivated highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum, and the substitution is not cosmetic: bilberry has dark purple flesh throughout and a fifteen-anthocyanin profile, while blueberry has pale flesh and a different, narrower profile. Bilberry is also essentially not cultivated — commercial volume comes from wild forest stands in the Nordic countries and eastern Europe, principally Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Russia. The plant does not grow in India, so this is an imported-raw-material line: berries are wild-collected and frozen or dried at origin, and Thovek supplies the refined extract against a documented collection and custody chain rather than presenting it as an Indian crop. Buyers who need organic status should note that the relevant scheme is wild-collection certification, not farm certification. The reference grade is the refined standardised dry extract at 25% anthocyanidins by UV, conventionally written as the equivalent 36% anthocyanosides. This is the pharmacopoeial pattern: the European Pharmacopoeia monograph for fresh bilberry fruit dry extract, refined and standardised, specifies 32.4 to 39.6 per cent anthocyanins expressed as cyanidin-3-O-glucoside chloride, and the EU herbal monograph on Vaccinium myrtillus L., fructus recens describes the corresponding preparation as a dry extract of DER 153-76:1 made with methanol 70% V/V and containing 36% anthocyanosides corresponding to 25% anthocyanidins. Food-grade extracts are more usually made with aqueous ethanol; whichever solvent is used, it is stated on the specification and residual solvents are tested to ICH Q3C. Identity rests on the anthocyanin fingerprint rather than the assay number alone: five aglycones — delphinidin, cyanidin, petunidin, peonidin and malvidin — each occurring as the 3-glucoside, 3-galactoside and 3-arabinoside, giving fifteen peaks whose relative proportions are characteristic of the species. Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside chloride, kuromanin chloride, CAS 7084-24-4, C21H21ClO11, MW 484.84, is the calibration standard. Bilberry is one of the most persistently adulterated botanicals in the trade. Documented adulterants include black rice and black soybean hull extracts, elderberry, chokeberry and mulberry, and the synthetic azo dye amaranth, which is not permitted as a colour in the United States. Assay alone cannot detect any of these, so every lot is run against the full HPLC anthocyanin profile and free anthocyanidin aglycones are held low, typically not more than 1%, since a raised aglycone figure signals either degradation or a non-bilberry anthocyanin source. The extract is vegan and vegetarian, with no bovine, porcine, marine or insect material and no FDA 9 or EU 14 allergen inputs including peanut and sesame; carriers, where used, are named with their botanical origin. Anthocyanins are heat, light, oxygen and sulphite sensitive and their colour is strongly pH dependent, so formulation guidance and light-protective packaging are supplied as standard. Heavy metals, pesticide residues and microbiology are tested lot-wise and every consignment ships with COA, specification, MSDS, allergen and GMO statements and origin documentation. This record describes composition and food-technology function only; no therapeutic or disease claim is made or supported.