Sea buckthorn products: Manufacture and composition

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a unique plant currently being dome sticated. The fruit is the main component of value, although the leaves are occasionally made into sea buckthorn tea. The two main sources of valuable products are derived from the berries, juice from the fleshy tissue and se ed as a single seed fi om each berry. The juice provides a nutritious bever age, high in suspended solids and very high in vitamin C and carotenes. The juice may contain an oil phase trapped within the suspended solids, or the oil may be removed as pulp oil and provided separately. The pulp remaining after juice removal provides for extraction of "sea buckthorn yellow", a p igment that has potential use as a food coloring material. The seed is a so urce of seed oil, which is very unsaturated and shows promise, because of i ts light absorption and emollient properties, as an ingredient in cosmetics , phytopharmaceuticals, or UV skin protectant preparations. It may be prepa red by conventional extraction techniques or by supercritical carbon dioxid e extraction. The manufacture of the main products derived from sea bucktho rn is described, including several examples from the patent literature. The available compositional data for the main products are tabulated to form a comprehensive source of information on the manufacture and composition of sea buckthorn products.