Nutritional science for mind health products
DSM Nutritional Products
The company initiated the launch to take advantage of the health-packed potential of yeast as an ingredient, after many years of developing yeast ingredients for the animal nutrition market.
Yeast is said to contain an array of B vitamins, as well as selenium, chrome, copper, manganese and zinc.
The French firm said that the new division will contain the business unit Lesaffre human care. Products under this unit will fall under the tradename Lynside.
The nutrition and health division will also contain five other business units, which will develop other aspects of the business, such as feed additives and agro sciences.
More Lynside products derived from yeast in the supplement and functional food markets are expected over the second half of this year.
In fact, new launches in this area have been scheduled every year for the next three.
The Lynside brand already includes several ingredients, which along with the vitamin and mineral profile also contains beta-glucan and amino acids.
General manager Antoine Baule said: "The dietary supplements and functional foods market is experiencing strong growth. Many reasons like the ageing population, the need of public preventional measures and the search for wellbeing explain this phenomena. In some countries, those preventional measures are used to help reduce public spending on health issues. Yeast and its derivatives have great potential in Nutrition & Health"
"Yeast is a very healthy product. It is a great source of many components which can contribute to good health."
Lesaffre is also conducting research on the probiotic effect of yeast.
The firm's main core of activities will be to provide yeast and ingredients to the bakery industry. This second group does not represent a move away from this, Baule, said but is in addition.
The human care arm will also take advantage of Lesaffre R&D, which has more than 100 research staff in the area of biotechnology.
Yeast also has the benefit of being a natural product, and those used and manufactured by Lesaffre belong to the species saccharomyces cerevisiae.
The group has about 40 plants in 23 countries and employs more than 6,000 people all over the world. Its turnover which is mainly generated abroad amounts to more than one billion euros, Lesaffre said.