Kappa Bioscience announces vitamin K2 stability project

17-Oct-2013 - Last updated on 15-Mar-2017 at 08:15 GMT

Norwegian company investigates ways to overcome vitamin K2 stability issues

Norwegian firm Kappa Bioscience has announced a research project into possible solutions to stability issues concerning vitamin K2, results of which could help manufacturers secure label claims.

Egil Greve, chief executive officer at Kappa Bioscience told NutraIngredients that the company – along with an unnamed global manufacturing partner - had analysed over 700 samples of various calcium formulations of mixtures, tablets and capsules containing vitamin K2 from the US, EU and Asia and found that stability of vitamin K2 often became an issue after abrasive processing methods such as alkalinity, high temperature and pressure.

This meant that sometimes up to 50% more of the vitamin would have to be added in order to ensure the labelling claims were true, Greve explained.

He said that the company and its unnamed partner had identified several possible solutions and that they would be announcing the “winner” in the next few weeks. Greve did say however that this was likely to fall under the remit of a coating technology that would protect the Vitamin K2 molecule against the tableting stress conditions.

“Kappa Bioscience’s project partner is one of the leading global vitamin manufacturers and has developed proprietary coating technologies for their fat soluble vitamins,” the company said.