Aloe Ferox Information

Aloe Ferox Gelly is an exceptional raw material, genuinely unique in its field. What makes it unique?

ALOE FEROX GELLY is derived from the Cape Aloe (Aloe ferox).

With possibly one or two exceptions, all other Aloe Gel products on the market are made from the Aloe vera plant.

The Aloe ferox plants used to make Aloe Ferox Gelly are healthy, robust plants, growing wild in their natural habitat and DO NOT require treatment with fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides which may impact on the quality of the final product.  The factory is in the heart of the aloe-growing area and transportation is minimal, reducing the risk of damage to the unprocessed leaves.

Other aloe product manufacturers use cultivated aloes, grown in large plantations and which, when harvested, often need to be transported long distances before being processed.  The leaves bruise easily and the risk of damage during transportation and storage is increased.  Aloe vera is propagated vegetatively for commercial harvesting, thus genetic biodiversity has been lost.

Once drained of its Bitter Sap, the whole leaf, including the skin, is used in the manufacture of Aloe Ferox Gelly, thereby retaining valuable minerals, vitamins and trace elements which would be lost if the leaf was "peeled".

Only the leaf fillet is used in the production of Aloe vera gel.

Scientific tests carried out on Aloe ferox and Aloe vera plants, growing side by side at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, showed that:

• Aloe vera has a much softer and more translucent inner gel;  it is notably more mucinous and tends to froth when minced;
• After extraction, the juice of Aloe vera leaves decolourizes and loses viscosity much more rapidly than does the juice of Aloe ferox.  The gelly of Aloe ferox does not require artificial stabiliza
• Juice expressed from the whole leaves of Aloe ferox and Aloe vera were compared for their solid content by precipitation with acetone and centrifugation. Demonstrable solids in Aloe ferox were consistently greater in volume than those obtained from Aloe vera.
• In comparison of unprocessed leaf juice, the amino-acid content of Aloe ferox is at least three times greater than that of Aloe vera.

The extraction process used to obtain Aloe Ferox Gelly entails:

• draining the leaf of its bitter sap (this is done in the fields where the leaves are harvested, by placing them in a circle over a hollow in the ground where they are left for several hours)
• on arrival at the factory, the leaves are washed and then crushed
•  the pulp is washed again to remove any traces of bitter sap;
• the clean pulp is warmed in water and citrate to separate the valuable polysaccharides from the calcium in the leaf;
• on cooling, the gel thickens to form a rich, concentrated gelly.

Specifications