New organic-certified fucoidan for functional beverages

13-Oct-2009 - Last updated on 14-Oct-2009 at 12:25 GMT

The first organic-certified fucoidan ingredient developed for the functional beverage market will be launched as Fucorich at Supply Side West next month, according to the Australian biotechnology company Marinova.

Extracted from wild Wakame seaweed, the company’s Fucorich product contains at least 50 per cent of fucoidan and marine mannitrol.

The sulfated polysaccharide fucoidan is said to offer a range of health benefits including digestive and cardiovascular health, immune support, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral properties, claims the company. The addition of mannitol is also claimed to make the extract suitable for people on low calories diets.

Wakame seaweed

“Fucorich provides all the health benefits of organic Wakame seaweed in an easily-ingestible concentrated form,” the company’s business development manager Antoine Valterio told NutraIngredients.com. “One gram of Fucorich is equivalent to consuming about 500grams of fresh Wakame seaweed.”

Also the company’s new extract is free from the chemical residues that it says can contaminate competitors’ products. “Unlike fucoidan extracts made from seaweeds grown in waters contaminated by industrial and human pollution, Fucorich is made from wild-grown hand-harvested organic seaweeds growing in the pristine coastal waters of Patagonia,” said Valterio.

Marinova’s solvent-free production method ensures the fucoidan molecule remains unadulterated in chemical structure and free from solvent residues, said the company. That means the chemical integrity of the fucoidan molecule is preserved and the bioactivity of the product is uncompromised by the extraction process.

But extraction methods based on high temperatures and the solvents can cause degradation of the polysaccharide components, and contaminate the final product, said Valterio. “Fucoidan extracts manufactured in this way suffer from several shortfalls; their quality is inconsistent, their chemical integrity is altered, and most significantly, their bioactivity is diminished,” he added.

Therapeutic properties

Used widely in both nutrition and personal care industries, the global market for seaweeds and seaweed extracts is estimated at $US 1.2bn, said the company. “Although the health benefits of fucoidan have been long been recognised in Asia, the awareness of its therapeutic properties is rapidly gaining acceptance in Western countries. We anticipate the market to grow exponentially in the next 3-5 years,” predicted Valterio.

Fucorich, the product of a joint venture between Marinova and Soriano AS, is said to be offered at competitive price points which makes it both a cost-effective and high quality alternative to non-organic-certified fucoidan extracts. “The price of Fucorich enables it to be included into a broader range of functional products and greater consumer access of the health benefits of organic fucoidan,” he added.

The product will be launched at the trade event Supply Side West which takes place in Las Vegas between November 11th – 13th.