Sustainability, CBD, gut health and nutricosmetics: The hottest trends at Vitafoods 2019, summarised - WATCH

Marion Schumacher of Informa Exhibitions, which owns and runs the Vitafoods group of shows, told us the event itself was the biggest and busiest ever - and picked out some of her top trends along the way.

"We've seen a fantastic year here at Vitafoods, it's been our busiest year so far, we've had 200 more booths than last year and the visitor numbers were up quite significantly," said the show's content manager. 

Schumacher noted that the increased focus on sustainability both by the Vitafoods show itself and with exhibitors was a particular highlight.

"Also we had [education sessions on] key issues, such as nutricosmetics which was one of the busiest, personalised nutrition, food technology, but by far the most exciting session this year is CBD,"​ she added."

"Without a doubt it's the ingredient that people are most keen on at the moment, and have the most question around."​

On the show floor, Ahd Tamimi of GeoSilica Iceland told us that gut health seemed to be the biggest talking point.

"The trend that I see a lot of, seems to be something to do with gut health in some way or another,"​ he noted. "There seems to be a lot of enzymes, a lot of probiotics, that seems to be quite prevalent." ​

Tyler Ris of Bionap agrees that gut health was a hot topic at the show - noting that there was keen interest in the the company's ingredients in the area.

Meanwhile, Abey Thomas of Natural Remedies noted that cognition and brain health are categories that are witnessing rapid growth, and Gaetan Noiret of Russelot said there are new trends for collagen peptides too, with new sectors like sports recovery showing promise, alongside growing applications in personalisation.

Good science is key​

"I'm feeling that more and more companies are presenting scientific evidence,"​ said Damien Guillemet of Nexira, adding that there is a trend to try and increase visibility through the use of research studies.

"I think it's very beautiful that you share information. Sometimes scientific data results can be too difficult to access for everybody, and what is beautiful is here, we have a clear view of information.​"