“CriseNutra is designed to address health, regulatory and reputational crises affecting nutraceutical products and brands,” Grégory Dubourg, CEO of the Nutrikéo x ProtéinesXTC group, told NutraIngredients. “These can include, for example, controversies around specific ingredients, raw-material incidents or product recalls that can weaken a brand’s image overnight.”
The offer targets all nutraceutical stakeholders: ingredient suppliers, contract manufacturers and dietary supplement brands, which Nutrikéo x ProtéinesXTC notes reflects the fact that the entire value chain is exposed to these risks.
‘Highly exposed’ sector
Duborg highlighted that several signals clearly show that the nutraceutical sector is now “highly exposed”, citing the implementation of official mechanisms like Rappel Conso and Nutrivigilance platforms in France, encouraging brands to anticipate and prepare to manage alerts and crises.
He also noted that the rapidly growing market increases scrutiny on ingredients, products, practices and industry players and that the sector faces sanitary, regulatory and reputational risks similar to those observed in the food and pharmaceutical industries: misuse, adulteration, misleading claims or potential interactions.
“Altogether, these elements show that nutraceutical players need to be better prepared to anticipate and manage such challenges,” he said. “This is precisely why we created CriseNutra.”
CriseNutra is structured around four complementary components that cover the entire crisis management cycle.
The pillars include preparing for and training in crisis management, anticipating and managing risks, providing support in the event of alerts/crises and highlighting post-crisis opportunities.
“A crisis is not managed on the day it breaks—it must be anticipated well in advance, with method and preparation,” said Antoine Mercier, executive director of ProtéinesXT. “We have all the integrated skills required to do just that.”
Joining forces to address major industry challenges
The CriseNutra launch follows the merger of the two French consulting agencies announced earlier this year, which sought to combine their experience “to become the leading independent European consultancy in food, nutrition and health-strategy innovation,” Dubourg said.
Nutrikéo offers in-depth knowledge of the nutraceutical market, incorporating services such as market research and trends, multichannel communication and marketing strategies for sectors such as food, pharma and agriculture.
ProtéinesXTC is a consulting firm focused on the food, nutrition and agro-food industries, with longstanding crisis management expertise.
“Having evolved within the same ecosystems for many years, the merger between Nutrikéo and ProtéinesXTC was a natural step to more effectively address the major challenges of innovation, marketing, science and communication faced by stakeholders in the nutrition/food industry and retail,” Dubourg said.
