NutraCast: Riding the astaxanthin wave with BGG World
This content item was originally published on www.nutraingredients-usa.com, a William Reed online publication.
BGG World recently announced it has doubled its astaxanthin farm’s capacity yet again. The completion marks the second major expansion of its state-of-the-art microalgae farm in the last two years, making it the largest astaxanthin farm in the world, according to the company.
The expansion is located in the same region as its existing farm, about a kilometer from the current facility.
“It's a real unique place where the farm is located. It's down in South Central China near the borders of Tibet, Nepal, Myanmar, Northern Myanmar, and Northern Vietnam. It's in a region that really is one of the very best, if not the best place in the world to grow microalgae because it's at a very high elevation which keeps the summers not too hot and the winters are not too cold,” explained Bob Capelli, BGG Americas and Algae Health Sciences CEO. “Our farm utilizes water that runs from the Himalaya Mountains from the Tibetan plateau and so that's one of the features of our product, that it's grown in Himalayan Mountain Water.”
BGG’s farm was already the world’s largest, so doubling the size again has made BGG the market leader in Natural Astaxanthin from microalgae, Capelli said.
While astaxanthin is used across the globe, Capelli said what’s interesting is that each region has a different use for it.
“It is popular in many different places in the world because it has 10 different health benefits that have been clinically-validated. The different regions focus on different health benefits in their promotion and marketing of the product. And so, if you ask a consumer in Japan, for example, that's taking astaxanthin why are you using it, most of them there are using it for skin or eye health. If you ask someone in In Italy why they are using astaxanthin, most of them are taking it for cardiovascular health. In the USA, a lot of athletes–especially triathletes and marathon runners–are using it for its endurance and energy aspects. Croatia is a crazy place because they focus on the male fertility health benefits of astaxanthin.”
To hear more on the process of growing astaxanthin and if BGG World plans to expand again, listen to the NutraCast.
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