Production of flavor concentrates by osmosis

A process for preparing a food concentrate comprising:

• preparing an aqueous starting solution from a food, wherein the aqueous starting solution is a vapor condensate obtained from a fruit or a vegetable,
• concentrating the aqueous starting solution by forward osmosis with a semi-permeable biomimetic membrane, and
• thereby forming a food concentrate as a retentate;
• wherein the semipermeable biomimetic membrane comprises:
• vesicles of liposomes comprising at least one aquaporin protein incorporated therein or vesicles of polymersomes comprising at least one aquaporin protein incorporated therein;
• a thin film composite matrix in which the vesicles are embedded;
• and
• a carrier layer;
• wherein the osmosis is carried out at a temperature in a range of 10° C. to 40° C.;
• and
• wherein the aqueous starting solution is concentrated by a factor of 20 to 1000.